Evolution

To protect from deadly drought and make it on land, plants developed complicated inner plumbing

Mammal species that live in groups seems to live longer than those that lead solitary lives

A new variant of the virus that causes COVID has mutations that make it more transmissible, but vaccines are still likely to protect against severe disease

From reviving dead pig organs to measuring viruses in our poop, here are some of the most intriguing medical advances of the year

Weird new evidence on tooth evolution tips the scales even more toward scales

A genome analysis finds SARS-CoV-2 and bat coronaviruses shared an ancestor just a few years ago, but extensive recombination has muddied the picture

Tiny subterranean cracks can upend aquifer microbes’ ecology

For most of human evolution, multiple species with different ways of walking upright coexisted

Animals with a backbone may have first emitted something akin to bleeps, grunts, crackles, toots and snorts more than 400 million years ago

The fossilized embryo of a Cambrian worm holds the preserved remains of a tiny brain

Svante Pääbo’s work on sequencing the DNA of Neandertals and Denisovans, which won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, revealed surprising interbreeding among human species

Fish fossils from Western Australia preserve the oldest 3-D hearts, livers, stomachs and intestines in a jawed vertebrate