A weirdly shaped telescope could finally find Earth 2. 0
The Earth supports the only known life in the universe, all of it depending heavily on the presence of liquid water to facilitate chemical reactions. While single-celled life has existed…
Mysterious Denisovan interbreeding shaped the humans we are today
Researchers think that members of the most recently identified “hominin” group (the Denisovans) mixed with early modern humans and passed along parts of their DNA. Evidence points to several separate…
Tracing the Origins of Oaks: How Climate and Tectonic Changes Shaped Modern Trees
Rising global temperatures and shifting tectonic plates are believed to have shaped the development of one of Earth’s most iconic trees, the oak (Quercus). According to reports, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal…
Titan’s lakes may be shaped by waves
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the only other planetary body in the solar system that currently hosts active rivers, lakes, and seas. These otherworldly river systems are thought to be…
The behavior of ant queens is shaped by their social environment
The queens in colonies of social insects, such as ants, bees, and wasps, are considered the veritable embodiment of specialization in the animal kingdom. The common perception is that the…
How shifting climates may have shaped early elephants’ trunks
Researchers have provided new insights into how ancestral elephants developed their dextrous trunks. The study, published today as an eLife Reviewed Preprint, combines multiple analyses to reconstruct feeding behaviours in…