News by Subject Earth Science

Powerful and deadly, trap-jaws are a record-breaking evolutionary innovation. Unlike normal gripping jaws, which rely on muscles to open and close, the trap-jaw latches itself open, storing energy like a stretched spring. When released, the jaws of the ant snap shut in one ultrafast strike. However, scientists still don't understand how this complex mechanism evolved. Now, publishing today in PLOS Biology, researchers have shown how trap-jaws originated and then diversified multiple times across the world.

A long-held hypothesis is that the mammal backbone evolved from a backbone that functioned similar to that of living reptiles. In a paper in Current Biology, a team of researchers led by Harvard University challenge this "lateral-to-sagittal" hypothesis and show non-mammalian synapsids moved their backbone in a manner that was distinctly their own and quite different from any living animal.

The trap-jaw ants are famous for having one of the natural world's fastest movements, but how did the latch-spring mechanism that drives their jaws evolve? According to a study published on March 2nd, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Douglas Booher of UCLA, Evan Economo of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, and colleagues, the core mechanism itself arose multiple times before going on to a spectacular diversification of mandible shape.

Bird-friendly coffee is shade-grown, meaning that it is grown and harvested under the canopy of mature trees, a process that parallels how coffee was historically grown. But with most farms in Central and South America and the Caribbean converting to full-sun operations, crucial bird habitats for migrating and resident bird species are being lost.

Scientists have identified proteins in aphid saliva that can alter plant development. These proteins drive abnormal growths called galls, which give insects a protected place to feed and reproduce.

Neandertals -- the closest ancestor to modern humans -- possessed the ability to perceive and produce human speech, according to a new study published by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam and graduate student Alex Velez.

Rising temperatures could reduce the efficiency of food chains and threaten the survival of larger animals, new research shows.

Rutgers scientists for the first time have pinpointed the sizes of microplastics from a highly urbanized estuarine and coastal system with numerous sources of fresh water, including the Hudson River and Raritan River.