Why do women have orgasms? That may seem like a strange question, but it’s one which has perplexed scientists for decades and provoked fiery academic debates along the way. The real question is: what is…
Extinction rates have been overestimated but many species still on track to share the dodo’s fate.
flickr
A paper casting doubt on a widely used method of calculating extinction rates has fuelled furious debate in scientific circles, with some arguing it ignores important evidence and others saying it has…
Poor sperm quality is a characteristic common to all men, not just some.
Aldo Risolvo/Flickr
Infertility plagues one in six Australian couples, and in approximately half of these cases the problem lies in poor semen quality. The discovery that a man has poor semen quality can be emotionally challenging…
A guy walks into a cafe … but what happens next depends on strategy.
nathancolquhoun/Flickr
Long before men asked themselves “What’s the meaning of life?”, they were scratching their heads and wondering “How do I get the girl?” And it’s not just humans who have been consumed with this question…
E.coli and other critters provide glimpses of evolution in action.
kaibara87/Flickr
When you think of evolution, you no doubt imagine a process that takes millions of years to produce any notable results. In other words, evolution doesn’t happen overnight. Or does it? While the most significant…
Do cane toads add something new to ‘natural selection’?
manda/Flickr
Some 150 years ago, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for evolutionary change; but is there something beyond natural selection driving evolution? My colleagues and I think so, and we believe it has come…
As a society, we seem to be obsessed by sex. So wondering out loud why we have it is likely to invite a highly bemused response. And yet sex remains one of the great, enduring mysteries of evolutionary…
Did music precede language for Homo sapiens?
Spuz/Flickr
All human cultures and social groups that we know of respond to music and dance. The type of music may vary but the underlying, fundamental principles of making music are the same. Our recognition of…