Climate is the most important driver of the colour and brightness of birds' eggs.
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Articles on Evolution
Displaying 1 - 20 of 644 articles
The human scream – a response we share with our primate relatives – is more nuanced than you might think.
How many genes do you really need? Are there any that we can lose? Researchers are now identifying species that have streamlined their genome to adapt to a particular lifestyle.
Humans evolved through a series of highly unlikely events – so finding another intelligence like us would be like winning the lottery many times over.
We know that pigs or dogs will never understand prime numbers. Some philosophers think that concepts like consciousness are similarly inaccessible to humans.
New research models how the Homo floresiensis species could have evolved its small size remarkably quickly while living on an isolated island.
In science, we look at the evidence and try to find the theory that best explains it. And that's what happened when it came to figuring out evolution.
Paleontologists created an evolutionary map of how croc body size changed over the last 200 million years – with some interesting implications for today's species.
Dust from the breakup of an asteroid changed the Earth's climate and led to an increase in marine biodiversity, study shows.
A new analysis of an extinct giant kangaroo skull suggests it was adapted to eat tough, woody material - a feeding style not found in any modern marsupials.
A thought experiment from Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene turned out to be a more realistic explanation for altruism than he expected.
When seconds stretch into minutes.
The Amazon will take a lifetime to recover from this year's fires – if it ever does.
Current plans for lunar exploration may end up destroying ancient, genetic samples from Earth that have ended up on the moon.
_Hydrophis cyanocinctus_ is the only sea snake species known to breathe through the top of its head, using a special arrangement of blood vessels in much the same way as fish gills.
If you go by editorial cartoons and T-shirts, you might have the impression that evolution proceeds as an orderly march toward a preordained finish line. But that's not right at all.
Reconsidering an old ecological conundrum comes up with a new perspective on migration, contact and trade in the Australia and Asia-Pacific region.
Fossil flies from what is now Denmark reveal some striking similarities between insect eyes 54 million years ago, and our own vision today.
Changes in our environment can reveal previously hidden mutations in our DNA with potentially good and bad consequences.
The newly discovered Heracles inexpectatus stood nearly a metre tall. And its fossil bones sat undiscovered on a museum shelf for more than a decade before its hefty status was finally appreciated.
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Top contributors
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John Long is a Friend of The Conversation.Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Rob Brooks is a Friend of The Conversation.
Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW's Grand Challenges Program; Director, Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, UNSW
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Associate Professor and Chief Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of New South Wales, UNSW
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Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University
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Professor of Evolutionary Biology, University of Melbourne
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Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow, The University of Queensland
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Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
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Susan Lawler is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor, Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe University
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Professor of Earth System Science, UCL
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Emeritus Professor, University of Cape Town
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Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology & Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University
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ARC Future Fellow, The University of Queensland
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Researcher, CSIC - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
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Distinguished Professor of Genetics, La Trobe University
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ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Melbourne
