Woodrats weigh less than half a pound but can survive venomous rattlesnake bites that would hospitalize, or even kill, a full ...

In this age of science, many people see supernatural forces as illusions rooted in wishful thinking. But love remains a profound exception to humanity’s trend toward rationality. People are used to ...

A fungus that infects salamanders contains multiple copies of the same "jumping genes", scientists have discovered. Jumping genes, called transposons, can "copy and paste" themselves and impact the ...

A research team has identified the most widespread genetic contribution by Denisovans to date. The study reveals that the genetic variant observed, which affects zinc regulation, could have signified ...

A study of celibacy among monks in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries has shed light on the “surprising” evolutionary advantages of the practice. With reproduction at the heart of the evolution of living ...

Conjugates between polyamines and hydroxycinnamic acids are found on the pollen surface of all higher plants, both mono- and dicots. But we don’t know why they are there. Delporte et al. (2018) have ...

Why would someone join an institution that removed the option of family life and required them to be celibate? Reproduction, after all, is at the very heart of the evolution that shaped us. Yet many ...

Researchers extracted DNA from the remains of people buried in the East Smithfield plague pits, which were used for mass burials in 1348 and 1349. (Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA)) When the ...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be the result of millions of years of evolution. Rapid neuronal evolution in humans is likely ASD’s genetic cause, new research suggests. Though autism can cause ...