The penis. It comes in so many different shapes and sizes … and that’s just in humans. As you would imagine, different species have very different penises. The males in most mammal species, including cats…
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Articles on Evolution
Displaying 881 - 900 of 996 articles
People often ask me whether natural selection continues to operate on modern humans in industrialised societies, even though technology has liberated so many from hunger and early death. My answer is always…
Geological features of the Great Rift Valley, birthplace of the human species, may be much older than previously believed…
Lying down and chewing cud is a crucial part of a cow’s digestive process, new research has confirmed, rather than a sign…
A report published today in Nature by Yohannes Hailie-Selassie and co-workers outlines the importance to our evolutionary story of some very ancient foot bones discovered recently in the Rift Valley of…
Fossilised teeth from a 200-million-year-old fish have been found to be the sharpest ever recorded. The conodont fish appeared…
The fossilised remains of three people found in southwest China could belong to an unknown species that was related to modern humans and survived until the end of the Ice Age 11,000 years ago. The discovery…
The origin of the human species remains one of the most fascinating and difficult topics of modern science. One of the main reasons for this is a continuing lack of agreement about how we should define…
Few of us consider that having sex could result in a violent, instantaneous death. But in nature, where sex and violence are often two sides of the same coin, many animals are routinely subjected to such…
Scandinavian conifer trees in the high arctic were able to withstand the last ice age, researchers from Murdoch University…
Researchers from the Agency of Science, Technology and Research in Singapore have analysed the nature of the “alarm substance…
Asian honey bees attempt to ward off would-be predators by vibrating their abdomens from side to side, researchers at the…
We evolutionary biologists over-enthuse at times about the competitive nature of selection. Observing animals in the wild often compels one to agree with the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes…
There’s something degenerate in every male (no, seriously). We members of the facial-hair-bearing sex carry, among the 23 pairs of chromosomes in every one of our cells, an odd pair of sex-chromosomes…
Co-operative behaviour has been found in primitive animals and children, challenging the Darwinian theory that humans are…
Bird feathers may have evolved more recently than previously thought, and the development of powered flight may have been…
The proportion of people with desirable physical traits could rapidly accelerate over a few generations with the aid of a diet that tweaks particular genes, a study suggests. Research by a team at Sydney’s…
Sperm can join together into conglomerates to navigate the female reproductive tract, according to researchers from the University…
“Finish your dinner or there’ll be no dessert for you!” – it’s a cry heard at dinner tables around the world, as mothers battle to convince their sons about the importance of eating properly. Sorry lads…
A recent study shows that mutations in the “breast cancer genes” BRCA1 and BRCA2 – which increase the risks of breast and ovarian cancers among others – also increase fertility. This is an extraordinary…
Top contributors
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Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW's Grand Challenges Program, UNSW Sydney
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Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences at the University of Bath, University of Bath
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Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath
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Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Monash University
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Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
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Adjunct Research Associate, Monash University
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Jenny Graves is a Friend of The Conversation.
Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor's Fellow, La Trobe University
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Principal Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent University
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Mark Elgar is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Evolutionary Biology, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Natural Sciences, UCL
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Senior lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, University of Bristol
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Evolutionary Ecology, Griffith University
