Evolution

Promiscuity evolved to fight back against inbreeding

From a strictly evolutionary perspective, there’s no reason why female beetles should be promiscuous. Unlike males, taking on multiple partners won’t allow females to spread their genes more widely, and too much sex can actual shorten the female beetle lifespan. But according to research from the UK’s University of East Anglia, there may be a…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 26

Carnotaurus had the most ridiculously weak dinosaur arms ever

The image of the hulking T. rex and its comically undersized arms is deeply ingrained in pop culture, but it isn’t really fair. They were muscular little appendages well-suited to their evolutionary purpose. The wimpy-armed Carnotaurus is another story entirely. As you can see in the skeleton up top, Carnotaurus had arms that even T.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 25

Female Promiscuity Is a Biological Imperative

Men have always had evolution to blame for their wily Cassanova ways—that whole spreading their seed far and wide thing. Finally, evolution is coming through for women, too! Female promiscuity is common in chimpanzees, chickens, salmon, sea urchins and obviously humans. But no one ever found an evolutionary benefit to it. (Although they had found…

Tech News Kristen Philipkoski Sep 22

This beetle larva tricks its predator into becoming prey

The predator-prey relationship between frogs and beetles seems like it would be pretty obvious doesn’t it? Frog spots beetle, frog stealthily approaches beetle, frog eats beetle. Done, done and done. But it turns out that the relationship between amphibians (like frogs and toads) and the larvae of ground beetles is one of nature’s rare examples…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Sep 21

An alternate history where evolutionary theory never evolved

Designer and futurist Thomas Thwaites recently posed an interesting question. What would life be like in a world where evolutionary science never took hold, but humanity was nevertheless as scientifically developed as we are today? In a series of stories and art projects, he tries to answer that question — and explains why, in this…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 21

Birds from the Cretaceous period went out the same way as the dinosaurs — with a bang

For years, paleontologists have disagreed over whether birds from the Cretaceous period went out with a whimper — dying out gradually over the course of millions of years — or with a bang — getting wiped out by the same mass extinction event that is believed to have killed off Earth’s most recent (and final)…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Sep 19

Oldest known DNA fragment is over a billion years old

There’s one tiny fragment of DNA that pretty much all vertebrates and invertebrates share. It’s the only piece of DNA known to be a billion years old — and it still has a role to play in shaping our genes. Researchers at the University of Barcelona discovered the fragment, which is a noncoding sequence of…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 19

Mollusks evolved brains on four different occasions

As far as invertebrates go, you don’t get much smarter than the members of the mollusk phylum, which includes octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid. But mollusks apparently didn’t think through their evolutionary path very well, developing brains four times over. That’s the finding of researchers at Auburn University. Kevin Kocot and his team examined the genetic…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 18

Neanderthals were eating brain-expanding shellfish 150,000 years ago

Shellfish has a surprisingly important place in our evolutionary story. One theory says shellfish fueled the expansion of our brains, while another gives it credit for saving our species. Turns out Neanderthals liked shellfish just as much as we did. Shellfish are a plentiful source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for higher brain…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 16

We’ve discovered a new species of dolphin, and it’s probably already endangered

Characterizing a new animal species can be a tricky process, but in dolphins it can be especially difficult. Now, scientists in Melbourne, Australia have managed to formally classify what will be just the fourth formal description of a new dolphin species in over 100 years. The new species, classified as Tursiops australis (pictured up top),…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Sep 15

Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber

Today a group of paleontologists announced the results of an extensive study of several well-preserved dinosaur feathers encased in amber. Their work, which included samples from many stages in the evolution of feathers, bolstered the findings of other scientists who’ve suggested that dinosaurs (winged and otherwise) had multicolored and transparent feathers of the sort you…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 15

What Does Evolutionary Biology Have to Do With Christmas in Binghamton?

David Sloan Wilson decided that Darwin’s evolution would never be taken seriously until it affected the world in a real and tangible way. In The Neighborhood Project he employs all the powers of biology, sociology, religion and economics to improve his hometown of Binghamton, New York. We decided to mount an even more ambitious effort…

Tech News David Sloan Wilson Sep 15

Are giant jellyfish evolving to take over the seas?

With fish numbers all over the world falling thanks to overfishing and habitat destruction, a surprising predator has sprung up to take their place — the jellyfish. Due to their low energy requirements, the floating blobs of stingers don’t need to be quite as active or accurate to spread and fill the ecological niche afforded…

io9 Tim Barribeau Sep 15

Why a little self-delusion can be a very good thing

In general, the more aware of reality you are, the more likely you are to survive. But sometimes lying to yourself has its advantages. Possessing an over-inflated belief in yourself can help you perform better than accurately knowing your abilities. That’s the finding of new research from the University of Edinburgh and UC San Diego.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 14

Are women really hardwired to remember deep male voices?

No matter how sophisticated and complex we get as a species, we’re still influenced by evolutionary drives millions of years in the making. Case in point: A new study argues that human women are seemingly drawn to deep male voices. But is this study reliable, or just playing on our preconceptions about how men and…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 12

230-million-year-old teeth reveal sharks’ adorable origins

Sharks weren’t always the huge, vicious alpha predators that they are today. Hundreds of millions of years ago, they were just another tiny little harmless fish species hanging out in lakes and rivers. So yeah…things have changed slightly since then. The most striking evidence of sharks’ humble beginnings has been found, in all places, in…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 11

Scientists unveil a newly-discovered, ancient human ancestor

This skull belonged to Australopithecus sediba, a new hominin species recently discovered in South Africa. The two million year old fossils are some of the most complete ever discovered, and they could rewrite our evolutionary family tree. As fossil finds go, the Australopithecus sediba find is a downright bonanza. Paleontologists first discovered the hominin at…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 8

Somalian cave fish live on a 47-hour day

These fish are native to the limestone caverns found deep beneath the Somalian desert. As you might imagine, these are creatures of eternal darkness, and thus the terms “night” and “day” are meaningless. And that’s what makes their biological clocks so bizarre. The Somalian cave fish, or Phreatichthys andruzzii, has an internal biological clock just…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 7

Ancient humans were just having sex with everyone

We know that as ancient humans expanded into Eurasia, they began interbreeding with our Neanderthal cousins. But it now appears that the fun didn’t start there – our ancestors also reproduced with precursors like Homo erectus and Homo habilis. https://gizmodo.com/confirmed-all-non-african-people-are-part-neanderthal-5822357 Thanks to DNA evidence, it’s now well-established that humans interbred successfully with Neanderthals and another…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 6

Why do fiddler crabs have such ridiculously large claws?

Male fiddler crabs have a single giant claw that looks like the evolutionary equivalent of going through a mid-life crisis and buying a super expensive sports car. The truth, it turns out, is only slightly less ridiculous than that. Fiddler crabs are one of the more spectacular violators of symmetry in nature, with their major…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 5

Promiscuity evolved to fight back against inbreeding

Carnotaurus had the most ridiculously weak dinosaur arms ever

Female Promiscuity Is a Biological Imperative

This beetle larva tricks its predator into becoming prey

An alternate history where evolutionary theory never evolved

Birds from the Cretaceous period went out the same way as the dinosaurs — with a bang

Oldest known DNA fragment is over a billion years old

Mollusks evolved brains on four different occasions

Neanderthals were eating brain-expanding shellfish 150,000 years ago

We’ve discovered a new species of dolphin, and it’s probably already endangered

Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber

What Does Evolutionary Biology Have to Do With Christmas in Binghamton?

Are giant jellyfish evolving to take over the seas?

Why a little self-delusion can be a very good thing

Are women really hardwired to remember deep male voices?

230-million-year-old teeth reveal sharks’ adorable origins

Scientists unveil a newly-discovered, ancient human ancestor

Somalian cave fish live on a 47-hour day

Ancient humans were just having sex with everyone

Why do fiddler crabs have such ridiculously large claws?

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