Evolution

Birds have a wide variety of vibrant plumages and have evolved various chemical and physical mechanisms to produce these beautiful colors over millions of years.  When did feathers first get…

Can even the human form grow tiring?This ORGY of a culture wepresuppose to be endlessly entertaining - perpetually self-gratifying -could it all be an elementary school yard game?Our brains areslowly…

The lowly appendix used to get no respect and was simply regarded as a useless evolutionary artifact but two years ago researchers at Duke University Medical Center proposed that it actually serves a…

Not only is Hamilton's Rule not a rule, it isn't even a strong suggestion.  The relationship c rb (1), doesn't begin to qualify as a meaningful description of anything. The first problem one…

Garter snakes like to eat newts. Newts don't like to be eaten, and to deter snakes from eating them, they have evolved a seriously lethal neurotoxin. This toxin, called tetrodotoxin (TTX), is…

It doesn't take a catastrophe to end entire lineages. (Well, for the dinosaurs it did.) But an analysis of 200 million years of history for marine clams found that vulnerability to extinction runs in…

I’m reviewing a book by philosopher of science Peter Godfrey-Smith entitled “Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection.” (This is not the book review, forthcoming.) Godfrey-Smith makes an excellent…

Researchers who make generalizations about the effects of domestication and dog-wolf differences in the utilization of human visual signals, take note; a new study says dog breeds selected to work in…

How evolution can bridge the gap between two discrete physiological states is a question that puzzles biologists and therefore delights critics. Most evolutionary changes happen in tiny increments;…

Science is occasionally a life-threatening career choice, particularly for those scientists who risk shipwreck, starvation, disease, and large, arctic carnivores to unlock the mysteries of the life's…