
Simulating evolution to understand a hidden switch
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Some organisms evolve an internal switch that can remain hidden for generations until stress flicks it on.
Just like humans trying to stick to New Year's resolutions, guppies have varying levels of self-control, a new study shows.
Certain snakes have evolved a unique genetic trick to avoid being eaten by venomous snakes, according to University of Queensland research. Associate Professor Bryan Fry from UQ's Toxin Evolution Lab said the technique worked in a manner similar to the way two sides of a magnet repel each other.
University of Miami anthropologist Caleb Everett and former student Sihan Chen used a novel data analysis of thousands of languages, in addition to studying a unique subset of celebrities, to reveal how a soft food diet--contrasted with the diet of hunter-gatherers--is restructuring dentition and changing how people speak. Their findings were published this week in Scientific Reports.
New research has unlocked the mystery of how the Galápagos Islands, a rocky, volcanic outcrop, with only modest rainfall and vegetation, is able to sustain its unique wildlife habitats.
Studying ancient food webs can help scientists reconstruct communities of species, many long extinct, and even use those insights to figure out how modern-day communities might change in the future. There's just one problem: only some species left enough of a trace for scientists to find eons later, leaving large gaps in the fossil record -- and researchers' ability to piece together the food webs from the past.
Foraging humans find food, reproduce, share parenting, and even organise their social groups in similar ways as surrounding mammal and bird species, depending on where they live in the world, new research has found.
A large class of mammalian genes is not completely shared throughout sperm development and differentiation, according to a new study of sperm in organisms including mice, macaques and men.
Writing in this week's "Perspectives" in the journal Science, ASU researchers Kim Hill and Rob Boyd comment on new science analyzing human behavior in traditional societies and advocate for a new fully integrated evolutionary theory of human behavior.
Deep in the Brazilian Amazon River basin, scientists discovered a small, river-fed lake filled with more than 100 adult electric eels. Researchers witnessed the electric eels working together to herd small fish into tightly packed balls. Groups of up to 10 eels periodically split off to form cooperative hunting parties. Those smaller groups then surrounded the prey and launched simultaneous electric attacks. The findings overturn the idea that these serpentine fish are exclusively solitary predators.