Why Do Humans Grow Up So Slowly? Blame the Brain.
Humans are late bloomers when compared with other primates—they spend almost twice as long in childhood and adolescence as chimps, gibbons, or macaques do. But why? One widely accepted but…
Evolutionary Biology
When Cooperation Counts
Everybody knows the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and now Harvard researchers have evidence that sperm have been taking the familiar axiom to heart. Though competition…
Strongest Evidence Yet That Pygmies' Short Stature Is Genetic
It’s not another tall tale: Evolutionary biologists have developed a new understanding of the genetic basis of short stature in humans. Also known as the pygmy phenotype, a study published…
How Do You Make a Bird? Shrink a Dinosaur for 50 Million Years
Large flesh-eating dinosaurs evolved into small flying birds, but it did not happen overnight. An international team of scientists on Thursday described an extraordinary evolutionary process that unfolded over a…
'Killer sperm' Prevents Mating Between Worm Species
The classic definition of a biological species is the ability to breed within its group, and the inability to breed outside it. For instance, breeding a horse and a donkey…
To Avoid Interbreeding, Monkeys Have Undergone Evolution in Facial Appearance
Old World monkeys have undergone a remarkable evolution in facial appearance as a way of avoiding interbreeding with closely related and geographically proximate species, researchers from New York University and…