Jun 16 Your next happy hour buzz, brought to you by bees By Nsikan Akpan, Matt Ehrichs Only two species of yeast --- ale yeast and lager yeast -- have been used for traditional beer brewing over the last 600 years. A lab in North Carolina may have found a third in the strangest place: On bees… Continue reading
May 24 Thar she grows! How whales got so big By Andrew Wagner Using computer models based on a Smithsonian's fossil collection, evolutionary biologists now believe whales' gigantic size was driven by climate change. Continue reading
Apr 06 If you had to eat a human, which body part should you pick first? By Nsikan Akpan To better understand the historical motivations of cannibalism, a new study looks into the nutritional value of human body parts. Continue reading
Mar 15 How global warming leads to tiny horses and other shrinking mammals By Nsikan Akpan Ancient teeth reveal when the Earth gets warmer, mammals shrink consistently in size. Continue reading
Mar 10 Why did humans evolve big brains? We don’t know, but math can help By Kristin Hugo Evolutionary biologists can use this new equation to test their ideas for how the human brain got so big. Continue reading
Jan 05 Watch 6:56 How CRISPR gene editing puts scientists in the driver’s seat of evolution By PBS News Hour Imagine you could edit a mouse’s genes to be resistant to Lyme Disease. The mouse would breed and evolution would take its course, leading to the extinction of the disease. That’s the vision for scientists developing CRISPR, technology that allows… Continue watching
Nov 30 Lucy, our famous ancestor, was built for tree-dwelling By Kristin Hugo Bone scans of Lucy, our ever popular human ancestor, suggest early hominins may have spent millions of years “monkeying around” in trees. Continue reading
Jul 06 Why a goat may stare at you with puppy dog eyes By Nsikan Akpan Goats, like dogs, stare at humans when in need, according to a new study. Continue reading
Jun 24 Naked lizard proves hair, scales and feathers descend from single reptilian ancestor, study says By Leigh Anne Tiffany A decades-long scientific debate is finally resolved, thanks to a scaleless mutant lizard. Continue reading
Jun 15 Mirror-image molecule near Milky Way’s heart gives glimmer of life’s origins By Nsikan Akpan A weird chemical phenomenon called chirality, which is critical for life, has been observed in space for the first time. Continue reading