evolution
Scientists Discovered a 'Dragon Man' Species That May Be Our Closest Relative
A skull from Harbin City, China, dates back at least 146,000 years and is “one of the most complete archaic human fossils” ever found.
Lightning Strikes May Have Sparked Life on Earth, New Study Proposes
Lightning could have been a major source of the element phosphorus, which is necessary for life, on early Earth.
Scientists Create Self-Replicating Chemicals to Help Explain the Origins of Life
An enduring question about how we got here is how a vat of primordial chemicals might have turned into life. Now, scientists are attempting to pull it off themselves.
The Mind-Boggling Theory That We Could Be Descended from Martians
Amir Siraj, a student studying astrophysics at Harvard University, talks about the potential spread of life throughout the Milky Way in a VICE News interview.
Scientists Just Discovered That Platypus Fur Glows Green Under UV Light
The platypus already had a reputation as a natural oddity. Blacklights now reveal that it is one of the few mammals known to be biofluorescent.
Scientists Discover 24-Million-Year-Old Megashark Hunting Ground in South Carolina
The site, where young prehistoric megasharks ate their fill to grow large, is the first ancient shark nursery in the U.S. to be confirmed with fossils.
A Thousand Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection
Professors are starting to orient Charles Darwin within a rich history of people from all cultures who have grappled with the mechanisms of life.
Scientists Discover 100-Million-Year-Old Sperm Preserved in Amber
A Cretaceous crustacean preserved in amber reveals new insights about “giant sperm.”
This Lizard Is in the Middle of a Wild Evolutionary Transition, Scientists Believe
An Australian reptile delivered the same litter both in eggs and live birth, suggesting to researchers that an evolutionary shift could be happening before our eyes.
Nearly All Animal Life Evolved From This Gross Worm Creature, Including Us
Some 555 million years ago, this worm-like animal with a mouth and butt tunneled through the seafloor, originating the body plan that gave rise to humans and most other animals.
A Wild Discovery About Fungi Just Changed Earth's Evolutionary Timeline
The finding deepens our understanding of how modern life originated on Earth and shows there’s a lot we still don’t know about our planet’s history.
‘Walking Sharks’ Are the Newest Branch of the Shark Family Tree
“They’re incredibly cute little animals and are really more like a gecko walking around than a shark.”