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Evolution

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Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals

March 7, 2018

An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more complex during the Cambrian explosion.

New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

March 5, 2018

A newfound pair of giant viruses have massive genomes and the most complete resources for building proteins ever seen in the viral world. They have refreshed the debate about the origins of these cellular parasites.

Evolution Saves Species From ‘Kill the Winner’ Disasters

February 12, 2018

Modelers find evidence that a combination of competition, predation and evolution will push ecosystems toward species diversity anywhere in the universe.

Q&A

In Birds’ Songs, Brains and Genes, He Finds Clues to Speech

January 30, 2018

The neuroscientist Erich Jarvis found that songbirds' vocal skills and humans' spoken language are both rooted in neural pathways for controlling learned movements.

A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild

January 23, 2018

Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic and behavioral changes may echo those from the domestication of dogs.

With ‘Downsized’ DNA, Flowering Plants Took Over the World

January 11, 2018

Compact genomes and tiny cells gave flowering plants an edge over competing flora. This discovery hints at a broader evolutionary principle.

Is a Bigger Genetic Code Better? Get Ready to Find Out

January 2, 2018

Evolution settled on a genetic code that uses four letters to name 20 amino acids. Synthetic biologists adding new bases to DNA will be free to improve on nature — if they can.

Q&A

A Mathematician Who Decodes the Patterns Stamped Out by Life

December 20, 2017

Corina Tarnita deciphers bizarre patterns in the soil created by competing life-forms.

New Bird Species Arises From Hybrids, as Scientists Watch

December 13, 2017

The rapid, unorthodox emergence of a new finch in the Galápagos hints that speciation isn’t rare. New hybrid species may quietly appear and disappear without anyone noticing.

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