Evolutionary biology

Left: Artist’s impression of extinct ichthyosaurs. Right: A modern dolphin.Image: Andrey Atuchin/ טל שמע (Wikimedia Commons)Sometimes, Darwinian natural selection stumbles upon the same solution more than once, in a process known as…

We know, we know. It’s not fauna. But this palm has an amazing story of rediscovery. The date species was originally domesticated during the Neolithic, some 7,000 years ago. The dates grown in the region of the Kingdom of Judah, known as…

In expansive new research out this week, scientists around the world have started to unravel the genetic secrets behind one of nature’s greatest success stories: mammals. They’ve catalogued and compared the genomes of more than 200…

I devoured C.L. Clark’s The Unbroken last year—it was part of the sapphic trifecta that came out in 2021, which also included The Jasmine Throne (Tasha Suri) and She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan). So I am thrilled to be able…

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is treacherously close to extinction, but the population could rebound without genetic problems related to inbreeding, according to researchers who recently studied the species’ genome.Vaquitas are…

Sergeant major damselfish swim around the corals off the shore of Koh Adang in the Andaman sea. Photo: Mladen ANTONOV / AFP (Getty Images)Enjoy the teeming oceans… for now.A new report in the journal Science findsthat if climate change…