Media coverage of sharks often exaggerates risks to people, but more than 500 shark species have never been known to attack humans, and there’s lots to learn about them.
Scrapping the idea of a species is an extreme idea – but perhaps a good one.
The teeth in these Australopithecus africanus skulls contain important evidence about the nutrition of these individuals as they grew up.
Luca Fiorenza
A new study shows the enigmatic hominin species Australopithecus africanus may have breastfed young for around 5-6 years – a very costly practice for the mother.
The ancestral population of modern humans appears to have split as it moved across Asia.
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The fish at your favourite lake may be outsmarting you.
Artistic view of the evolution of elephants. From left to right, Moeritherium (30 million years old), Deinotherium (5 million years old) and a modern African elephant.
Alex Bernardini (Simplex Paléo) and Sophie Vrard (Creaphi).
A shift in climate, along with other environmental disruptions and the invasion of competitors and new predators all likely played an important role in reshaping ancient elephants’ brains.
Jumping spiders, like this one, usually have eight eyes: two very large front eyes to get a clear, colour image and judge distance, and extra side eyes to detect when something is moving.
Flickr/Thomas Shahan
Human eyes are very complex and are good at doing many jobs at once, while spiders have different sorts of eyes that do different jobs.
Some lizards such as geckos can self-amputate their tails when threatened - these limbs can keep twitching for up to 30 minutes, creating a distraction and allowing the lizard to escape.
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Researchers were surprised to learn that in 38 countries, lost wallets with higher sums of money were returned more often than those with smaller amounts.
Ladybirds are insects with a hard outer shell, just like beetles.
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With the opioid crisis there is no doubt that physicians need safer, nonaddictive pain killers. Now new insights on how to create these are coming from an unlikely source: the naked mole rat.
Spraying insecticide to kill mosquitoes: Mosquitoes are vectors of many devastating diseases such as malaria.
Sukjanya/Shutterstock.com
In the ongoing arms race to kill off mosquitoes that spread malaria, researchers have modified a naturally occurring fungus that kills mosquitoes with a deadly toxin to wipe out these insects faster.
Two-footed walking, large human brains and using stone tools are all examples of evolution.
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