The oldest known python fossils, recently discovered in Germany, challenge current theories about early snake evolution.
DNA is the code of life. In order to better understand life, scientists are seeking an explanation for its beginnings.
2-million-year-old skull discovered in South Africa in 2018 shows climate change affected development
An international team of scientists sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all modern dogs share a common ancestry distinct from today's wolves.
Animals who lived in an ancient period, which until the mid-20th Century lacked evidence in the fossil record, shared much of the same complexity and similarity as do living things today, the journal "Nature" recently reported.
The pterosaurs, more popularly known as pterodactyls, were the first vertebrate animals to evolve powered flight, according to most scientists. They are thought to have achieved sky dominance almost 80 million years before modern birds.
New genes that emerged hundreds of millions ago helped vertebrates to become distinct from invertebrates, new research reveals.
Neuroscientists have for decades thought that much of how humans experience movement, vision and thinking is operated by a very small portion of our brains, called the cerebellum.
New research has found that the male-specific Y (chrY) chromosome can affect other cells in the body in addition to those related to reproduction.
The discovery of stone tools in a cave near the Altlantic coast of Portugal may indicate humans reached westernmost Europe between 38,000 and 41,000 years ago, approximately 5,000 years sooner than previously thought and in a time when Neanderthals still lived there.
University of Cologne researcher Schoenemann focuses on ancient eyes
An ancient species of dog, believed to be extinct in the wild, was recently discovered roaming near the largest gold mine in the world in Papua, Indonesia. The ancient dog breed may revive a dying species and add a new chapter to the understanding of human vocal learning.
From a chance glance by a hiker on a storied Grand Canyon trail, a paleontologist and colleagues managed to trace the footsteps of an animal that lived more than 300 million years ago, and unearth a previously unknown — and surprising — evolutionary quirk.
A recent paper by two scientists who studied crustaceans highlights the discovery that the wingless insects’ gene network was similar to that of insects – showing the gene network preceded the actual development of insect wings.
A new study published in Plos Genetics suggests that DNA sequence analyses of Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes show an interbreeding event that happened 200-300kya and open up insights into the ancestors of modern humans.
Organisms will cooperate to be more "fit" and stand a better chance of surviving, researchers in Germany said in a study released earlier this month.
In a review published in Nature on July 1, researchers provide an overview of origin of life research and highlight several key challenges in the field.
Until recently, no one has known why flying snakes move through the air by flattening their bodies and moving from side to side, appearing as if swimming while "flying." Now, thanks to Isaac Yeaton, a scientist from Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and lead researcher on a 2015 study of the flying snake.
Stanford graduate students published a paper on July 8 detailing a study claiming that Polynesians made contact with Native Americans hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans.
Scientists have areas of agreement, as well as differing views on some matters