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A study of a 100-million-year-old bone suggests the ancient relative of the echidna and the platypus was semiaquatic — and echidnas moved back to the land from the water as they evolved.
Researchers found LUCA, our earliest common ancestor, lived 4.2 billion years ago. It had a complex biology, affecting its environment.
Archived (Wayback Machine):
Tiny Fossils and the Big Picture: Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs
Presented by Dr. Brian Davis, University of Louisville, April 10, 2025.
The Mesozoic is commonly known as the "Age of Dinosaurs." The beginning of our own branch of the family tree was unfolding at the same time, mostly in the shadows. Mammals might have been tiny, but they experimented with a wide range of lifestyles. In this talk, Dr. Brian Davis explores what early mammals were like, and how palaeontologists find their fossils. This presentation answers the question, “What do mammal fossils tell us about how they lived, and perhaps why they went on to become so wildly successful?”
Admittedly even as a layman I think this 45-minute lecture could've gone into more depth and skipped over some of the basics, but it's still a nice watch. Sadly the sound quality isn't very good, I had to turn on the auto-generated subtitles...
Flamingos are not just Florida lawn decor—they are a remarkable bird that thrives in the driest desert on the planet. In honor of Earth Week 2025, this is episode 24 of Stories of Resistance.
Scientists are studying why some species live so much longer than others
You Might Think of Shrimp as Bugs of the Sea: But Bugs Are Shrimp of the Land
Here's a direct link to the journal article.
Summary: phylogenomic study found that Hexapoda (insects, springtails, headcones) is a sister clade to Remipedia (venomous, cave-dwelling "crustaceans"). So it's basically the same that happened with birds and dinos, except with bugs.
id they actually bring the Dire Wolf back from extinction as the scientists at the venture capital, Collosal bio science claimed? The answers might (not) shock you. The Skeptical Buddha the Tao of ...
Colossal Biosciences has genetically engineered the first dire wolf to live in over 10,000 years. Here's what that means for other extinct species.
Guardian readers around the world voted in the this year’s contest, but which creature won, asks natural history writer Patrick Barkham
Of all the components of dead plants, wood is the hardest to break down. How come fungi know how to do this? What issues did they need to solve to achieve this? The Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) tries to find answers to these questions. The research has yielded surprising discoveries....
No, Kerosene did NOT save the Sperm Whale (2024)
How we carried on exploiting sperm whales long after the conventional wisdom said we'd stopped. Forgotten Material #1
Scientists have debunked the belief that using tools is unique to mammals and birds, after documenting tropical fish that smash shellfish against rocks to open and eat the meat, in a fascinating new study published in the journal Coral Reefs on 26 March 2025.
Scientists have debunked the belief that using tools is unique to mammals and birds, after documenting tropical fish that smash shellfish against rocks to open and eat the meat, in a fascinating new study published in the journal Coral Reefs on 26 March 2025.
Dr. Juliette Tariel-Adam from the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University led a project tracking tool use in multiple species of wrasses—a colorful reef fish.
The study logs fish deliberately picking up hard-shelled prey like crabs and mollusks, smashing them against hard surfaces like rocks to access the meal inside.
In the murky depths of the ocean, one predator has a trait that exacerbates the dread it inspires as it slides through the ocean waves.
In human society, men tend to be seen as risk-takers, while women are seen as being more cautious. According to evolutionary psychologists, this difference developed in the wake of threats to each sex and their respective needs. While such generalizations are, of course, too binary and simplistic to...
Brains of parrots, unlike songbirds, use human-like vocal control - Ars Technica
A parrot called the budgerigar controls its vocalizations with a flexible system.
As avian flu spreads, should you avoid bird feeders?
As the avian flu continues to spread, some people may be wondering if it is still safe to use their bird feeder. Here's what the experts say.
To answer the question in the title:
Experts say bird feeders are generally safe and aren’t a notable source of spreading bird flu.
But if you also keep backyard chickens, Parr of the American Bird Conservancy recommends taking the bird feeder down to prevent possible transmission to poultry. Birdfeeders and nesting boxes should also be cleaned regularly.
The risk of spread to people from bird feeders “is very, very low,” he said.
See the article for other details
Food inspectors and disease-sniffing dog handlers remain out of work as food spoils.
Food inspectors and disease-sniffing dog handlers remain out of work as food spoils.
SpiderBot experiments hint at “echolocation” to locate prey - Ars Technica
Experiments with robotic spiders and prey suggest spiders can detect differences in natural web frequencies.
It's well understood that spiders have poor eyesight and thus sense the vibrations in their webs whenever prey (like a fly) gets caught; the web serves as an extension of their sensory system. But spiders also exhibit less-understood behaviors to locate struggling prey. Most notably, they take on a crouching position, sometimes moving up and down to shake the web or plucking at the web by pulling in with one leg. The crouching seems to be triggered when prey is stationary and stops when the prey starts moving.
But it can be difficult to study the underlying mechanisms of this behavior because there are so many variables at play when observing live spiders. To simplify matters, researchers at Johns Hopkins University's Terradynamics Laboratory are building crouching spider robots and testing them on synthetic webs. The results provide evidence for the hypothesis that spiders crouch to sense differences in web frequencies to locate prey that isn't moving—something analogous to echol
Gorillas may have greater self-awareness than scientists previously thought. A new study finds that gorillas perform just as well as chimpanzees in tests that require awareness of their own bodies. A research team, led by Utrecht University biologist Jorg Massen, performed the study. The researchers...
