New research combines cutting-edge engineering with animal behaviour to explain the origins of efficient swimming in nature’s underwater acrobats: seals and sea lions.
The utopian 20th-century model of a modern city – one that has been replicated around the world – is being exposed as unsuitable for adapting to the pace of change in the 21st century.
Vera Weisbecker, Flinders University and Jeroen Smaers, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)
Some animals, such as California sea lions, have small brains relative to their body size, but are still impressively intelligent, showing brain evolution is even more complex than it appears.
Scientists used to believe that a group containing starfish and sea urchin were the closest relatives of vertebrates like humans. But new research challenges this idea.
A parent’s or grandparent’s stressful experiences change how their offspring behave. And it turns out that moms’ experiences produce different changes in kids than dads’.
Teeth, horns, claws, beaks, shells and even plant prickles — the power cascade rule can be observed far and wide throughout nature, much like the famous golden ratio.
Madagascar stands out as an exceptionally interesting place in which to study the evolution of “mini” creatures. And we are only just starting to scratch the surface of this.
SARS-CoV-2 is much like a zombie virus. It interferes with normal sickness behavior and blocks pain, turning its victims into unsick spreaders of the virus.