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From monkeys washing potatoes to cockatoos raiding trash cans, socially spread behaviors allow creatures to adapt more rapidly to changing environments than conventional evolution would allow. But the traits are also more easily lost.
COMIC: The feisty orange-black butterfly uses a toolbox of biological tricks to find its way down to Mexico for winter and flap north again in spring. Here’s how scientists figured out those tricks — and what they don’t yet understand.
Social insects disobey evolutionary principles that say creatures invest in body maintenance or reproduction — not both. Scientists want to know how the creatures do it.
By engineering mutations into fruit flies, scientists reconstructed how the butterflies may have evolved resistance to the toxins found in milkweed, allowing their caterpillars to feast on the plant
The pandemic put the technology, long in development, to the test. Here’s a look at the status of its application to cancer and when it might reach patients.
How do animal populations respond to climate change? After studying the same butterfly and its habitats for decades, two biologists explain that it’s complicated — but endlessly intriguing.
Fifty years ago, Geoff Parker’s pioneering scholarship on “sperm competition” in insects was broadly overlooked. Since those days, hundreds of studies in many animals have confirmed the importance of what he discovered while watching flies mate around cow pats.
UCLA’s Susan Perry has devoted decades to studying the fast-motion life of these New World primates and learning how the young acquire the skills they need to thrive
Cells build an elegant, symmetrical structure. How they do it is intriguing on its own, but recent insights could also help explain some developmental disorders.
Evidence that the approach helps to save trees, preserve ecosystems and reduce carbon emissions is often hard to come by. But it can succeed if it’s done right, says an economist.
Pathogens can make us sick. Just how sick depends on genetic variations, including ones that sabotage immune molecules called interferons. A better understanding could lead to new treatments for Covid-19 and other scourges.
This challenging phase of life may get a bad rap, but it’s also full of opportunity. A developmental neuroscientist shares what she’s learned from studies on young people’s risk-taking behavior, reasoning and more.
Unusual variations in the cellular protein factory can skew development, help cancer spread and more. But ribosome variety may also play biological roles, scientists say.
New research suggests that to maintain a healthy brain, we should tend our gut microbiome. The best way to do that right now is not through pills and supplements, but better food.
These stealthy survival tactics could teach us how to curb the widespread use of chemical pesticides in agriculture. But first, researchers must learn how seemingly helpless flora deploy this masterful strategy.
We know pathogens from other species can endanger us. Scientists are better equipped than ever to do something about it, but political buy-in is crucial.
Social insects and humans share the trait of divvying up tasks, as do some fish. Researchers find that it emerges naturally, and it often doesn’t take a boss to keep things in order.
They have held our fascination ever since we first identified their remains. Today, thanks to new artifacts and technologies, findings about our closest relatives are coming thick and fast.
In people not adapted to life at altitude, the sparse oxygen can impair fetal growth, causing problems that can last a lifetime. Researchers are searching for remedies.
Mexican tetras that got swept into pitch-black caverns had no use for the energetically costly organs. They lost their eyes in multiple ways — and gained some nifty traits too.
It’s not an open-and-shut case. But researchers are finding out plenty by genetically altering the numbers of these openings, as well as simulating future atmospheres, and more.
Our bodies crave more food if we haven’t had enough protein, and this can lead to a vicious cycle — especially if we’re reaching for ultraprocessed instead of high-fiber whole foods
In its quest to feed, avoid nasty substances and just generally live its life, the brainless, one-celled Physarum polycephalum performs some impressive tricks of learning and memory
Bountiful remains of foraminifera reveal how organisms responded to climate disturbances of the past. They can help predict the future, too.
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