Megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived, is famous for its huge, human-hand-sized teeth. However, there is little fossil evidence of its whole body. International researchers in collaboration with UZH used an exceptionally preserved specimen to create a 3D computer model of its full body. Their results suggest that the megalodon could fully consume prey the size of today’s killer whales and then roam the seas without more food for two months.
Medieval doctors saw fertility as having a cut-off point rather than slowly declining with age, ancient medical texts show
Acoustic communication is not only widespread in land vertebrates like birds and mammals, but also in reptiles, amphibians and fishes. Many of them are usually considered mute, but in fact show broad and complex acoustic repertoires. According to researchers at the University of Zurich, the evolutionary origin of vocal communication dates back more than 400 million years.
Chimpanzees don’t automatically know what to do when they come across nuts and stones. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now used field experiments to show that chimpanzees thus do not simply invent nut cracking with tools, but need to learn such complex cultural behaviors from others. Their culture is therefore more similar to human culture than often assumed.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have found why zebra fur is thinly striped and sharply outlined.
Legislation is failing to end gas flaring in Nigeria which is harming the environment and people’s health, a new study warns.
British philosopher Kathy Wilkes is one of those unsung academic heroes who quietly changed many lives and deserves to be better known.
Academics from across the University of Exeter have joined forces with thought leaders from other universities, industry, government and non-profit organisations, to call for societal-wide action on reducing pharmaceutical pollution from human healthcare.
A reading project which pairs the old and young helps to boost wellbeing among children and the elderly, analysis shows.
A new study has identified the impact that fleeting natural events, such as sunrises and sunsets, can have on people, and sought to quantify their effects for the first time.
Skateboarding is a “polluted” leisure activity which both harms the environment and boosts sustainability, a new study argues.
A team of scientists from China and Yale University have found evidence detailing a direct link between Baltica and Laurentia, a pair of supercontinents that existed during the Meso to Neoproterozoic Era.
A combination of high-dose vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids and a simple home strength exercise program (SHEP) can cumulatively reduce the risk of cancer in healthy adults over the age of 70 by 61 percent, the international DO-HEALTH study led by the University of Zurich has shown. It is the first study to test the combined benefit of three affordable public health interventions for the prevention of invasive cancers. The results could influence the future of cancer prevention in older adults.
The school closures in spring 2020 had a negative effect on the health and well-being of many young people. But homeschooling also had a positive flipside: Thanks to sleeping longer in the morning, many teenagers reported improved health and health-related quality of life. The study authors from the University of Zurich therefore believe school days should begin later in the morning.
There are now 186 journals in Switzerland providing Diamond Open Access, meaning scientific articles can be published and read free of charge. A new PLATO study has collected data about the open access journals and highlighted the sometimes difficult working and publishing conditions.
Reduced biodiversity affects the stability of the entire ecosystem. A long-term experiment now shows that grassland plant communities with multiple species need about 10 years to adjust to each other and produce an even amount of biomass again.
Many women and men still work in sex-typed occupations. One important reason for this is that men are selectively leaving occupations that are increasingly taken up by women, a recent study from the University of Zurich has shown. This could explain swings in the sex compositions of jobs and why some specializations within occupations become female or male-dominated.
Long believed to be a uniquely human trait crucial for communication, visible white sclera — the “whites of the eye” — occur more commonly in chimpanzees and other mammals than previously reported, finds a new study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
Scientists have discovered a new layer of partly molten rock under the Earth’s crust that might help settle a long-standing debate about how tectonic plates move.
Researchers at the University of Zurich have developed a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to predict the efficacy of various genome editing repair options. Unintentional errors in the correction of DNA mutations of genetic diseases can thus be reduced.