Is this how we got the sperm and the egg?
Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock
An ancient sexual conflict over mitochondrial inheritance may be responsible for the evolution of the two sexes as we know them.
Brendan animation crop.
One animator combined his skills with paleontological evidence to breathe movement into a dinosaur fossil to eye-catching effect.
Andrii Vodolazhskyi/Shutterstock
Aliens are highly likely to undergo natural selection, shows new research.
Gory and gross, insects use disguises to improve their odds of survival.
(Pixabay)
Some insects wear gory disguises and macabre masks year round, not just at Halloween.
The Taung child (foreground) was the first of a long series of human ancestors discovered in Africa.
Julien Benoit
Recent research suggests that humankind’s origins lay outside of Africa. This is the nature of science: a paradigm that cannot be questioned on a regular basis becomes a dogma.
Calamophyton Forest colour copy.
Cladoxylopsid trees were hugely complex and very different to those we have now.
A pod of spinner dolphins in the Red Sea.
Alexander Vasenin/wikimedia
Complex behaviour such as regional accents and cultural food preferences in whales and dolphins seems to be linked to brain size.
It’s all about evolution.
Flickr/myri_bonnie
Animals that evolved in cold parts of the world usually have lighter skin. If a light-skinned animal has blood vessels close to the surface of their ear skin, this will make the ears look pink.
While fear suppresses talk about dying, marriage equality involves sex.
AAP/Danny Casey
The assisted dying bill in Victoria – complex and significant – is engendering less heated debate than marriage equality although both tap into some of our most fundamental fears and motivations.
A pair of Dromornis planei , an extinct mihirung bird from Australia, weighed a massive 300 kilograms.
Brian Choo
Australia was once home to giant fightless birds - much bigger than today’s emus and cassawories. But where did they come from, and where did they go?
World map of linguistic families / Wikimedia Commons
Evolutionary biologists ask very similar questions about species to those asked by linguists about languages.
Allergies may be in the genes that are passed down from parents to children.
Flickr/U.S. Department of Agriculture
Younus, age 9, wants to know how people become allergic to food.
Archaeopteryx.
Shutterstock
New research shows how dinosaurs suppressed their teeth and grew beaks, and then back-shifted this process from adult to embryo stage.
Reconstruction of an adult basal cynodont with its young.
Image by James Stemler
Two fossils found in South Africa provide direct evidence of parental care in extinct pre-mammalian ancestors.
Charles Darwin, who first advanced the theory of evolution, to the chagrin of creationists everywhere.
Shutterstock
Rather than castigate those who deny evolution, it is more useful to consider their arguments to help science explain it better
As genes are favored or phased out, human evolution continues.
ktsdesign/Shutterstock.com
Comparing genomes of more than 200,000 people, researchers identified genetic variants that are less common in older people, suggesting natural selection continues to weed out disadvantageous traits.
Ancient whales, such as Janjucetus illustrated here, used their sharp teeth to capture and process their prey.
Carl Buell
Ancient whales were neither gentle, nor giants: they were smaller than those of today and judging from their teeth, a lot meaner.
Shutterstock
Some animals seem to have missing genes – but the reality is a lot more intriguing.
Denali National Park, Alaska.
Tim Rains/NPS
Snowshoe hares in warmer zones have thinner fur, and some are not turning white in winter. As climate change warms the Northeast, will this species adapt?
Tiny hairs cover the bodies of honeybees — including this one dusted in pollen — that allow them to detect molecular “fingerprints” similar to how home security sensors work.
(Shutterstock)
Bees and home security cameras use the same complex techniques to monitor their environments.