The bobtail squid and bioluminscent bacteria are just one of hundreds of examples of mutualism. Klaus Stiefel/Flickr, CC BY-NC By Alex Jordan, University of Texas at Austin Reproduction for a female…

The 1KITE project (1,000 Insect Transcriptome Evolution) seeks to understand the millions of living insect species that shape our terrestrial living space and both support and threaten our natural…

8 percent of our genome derives from retroviruses that inserted themselves into human sex cells millions of years ago and right now the koala retrovirus (KoRV) is invading koala genomes. Koalas are…

Scientists believe that Eurasians separated into at least three populations around 36,000 years ago: Europeans,Asians and a mystery third lineage, all whose descendants would develop the unique…

Nature enjoys variety, that is why it seems like evolution must have been drinking during the creation of some of the crazier things in biology.  There is no intelligent reason why snakes and…

Biology can be inspirational.  The spiral ramps in multistory parking garages, the way they are stacked and connecting parallel levels, are replications of helical structures found in a…

By Sarah King, Genetic Literacy Project Since the discovery in 2004 of Homo floresiensis, an ancient hominid nicknamed “Flo” and also “hobbit”, after the diminutive villagers from J.R.R. Tolkien’s…

Scientists have documented the rapid evolution of a native lizard species as a result of pressure from an invading lizard species introduced from Cuba.  After contact with the invasive species,…

Though Ebola tends to occur in waves, the filoviruses family to which Ebola and its lethal relative Marburg belong, are at least 16 million years old. Filoviruses likely existed in the Miocene Epoch…

How did life originate? And can scientists create life? These questions have always occupied philosophers and scientists interested in the origin of life, and they impact technology of the future…