Articles about 'evolution'

The average body size of humans has fluctuated significantly over the last million years and is strongly linked to temperature. Colder, harsher climates drove the evolution of larger body sizes, while warmer climates led to smaller bodies. Brain size also changed dramatically but did not evolve in tandem with body size.

A massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia about 74,000 years ago likely caused severe climate disruption in many areas of the globe, but early human populations were sheltered from the worst effects, suggests a new study published in the journal PNAS.

Scientists have been able to track how a multi-drug resistant organism is able to evolve and spread widely among cystic fibrosis patients – showing that it can evolve rapidly within an individual during chronic infection.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a fossil of the earliest starfish-like animal, which helps us understand the origins of the nimble-armed creature.

The first complete dinosaur skeleton ever identified has finally been studied in detail and found its place in the dinosaur family tree, completing a project that began more than a century and a half ago.

Study charts the 'incipient supernova' of SARS-CoV-2 through genetic mutations as it spread from China and Asia to Australia, Europe and North America. Researchers say their methods could be used to help identify undocumented infection sources.  

The oldest fossil of a modern bird yet found, dating from the age of dinosaurs, has been identified by an international team of palaeontologists.

Some of the first animals on Earth were connected by networks of thread-like filaments, the earliest evidence yet found of life being connected in this way.

An evolution revolution has begun after scientists extracted genetic information from a 1.7 million-year-old rhino tooth – the largest and oldest genetic data to ever be recorded.
 

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to make new discoveries, and confirm old ones, about one of nature’s best-known mimics, opening up whole new directions of research in evolutionary biology.