From radar to reptiles, scientists trace the evolution of ancient swimmers
Key Points Convergent evolution occurs when completely unrelated groups of animals evolve similar features in response to similar environmental pressures….
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Scientists discover chameleon’s telephone-cord-like optic nerves once overlooked by Aristotle and Newton
C hameleons’ wandering eyes have fascinated and puzzled scientists since the days of ancient Greece. Now, after millennia of study,…
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Some plants can make their own fertilizer with this one weird trick. Scientists say they learned it more than once.
Key points Low nitrogen availability is the number one limitation to plant growth in most ecosystems. Farmers compensate by adding…
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There’s something fishy going on with great white sharks that scientists can’t explain
Key points White sharks exhibit stark differences between the DNA in their nuclei and the DNA in their mitochondria. Until…
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Genome sequencing of butterflies resolves centuries-old conundrum
When conditions are just right, organisms can undergo rapid bursts of diversification, and what starts out as one species can…
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UF study traces complex history of the strawberry
If you eat fruits or vegetables, how often do you think about their history? Former University of Florida post-doctoral researcher…
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Scientists have figured out how extinct giant ground sloths got so big and where it all went wrong
Most of us are familiar with sloths, the bear-like animals that hang from trees, live life in the slow lane,…
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A plant you’ve never heard of can do what scientists once thought impossible
About 3.7 billion years ago, a string of naturally occurring molecules — the same kind that astronomers have found in…
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Thorny skates come in snack and party sizes. After a century of guessing, scientists now know why
When Jeff Kneebone was a college student in 2002, his research involved a marine mystery that has stumped curious scientists…
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A 62-million-year-old skeleton sheds light on an enigmatic mammal
For more than 140 years, Mixodectes pungens, a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early…
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