Evolution

A new experiment shows that bats are born with a fixed reference for the speed of sound—and living in lighter air can throw it off.

An analysis of the animal’s walking speed suggests that T. rex’s walking pace was close to that of a human. It’s too bad the king of the dinosaurs didn’t just walk when hungry.

Brain networks for memory and planning may have set us apart from Neandertals—and chimps

DNA has upended neat and tidy accounts of the peopling of the American continents

Proliferating cichlids may specialize using regulatory DNA

It lets us excavate ancient fossils while preserving information about the sediments that hold them—crucial to understanding their age, among other things

The two cities’ rock doves are genetically distinct, research shows.

Fossilized pollen and leaves reveal that the meteorite that caused the extinction of nonavian dinosaurs also reshaped South America’s plant communities to yield the planet’s largest rain forest

A paleontologist and an illustrator team up to make mythical creatures follow biomechanical rules

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Video produced in partnership with The Great Courses. All Great Courses video content is available only to subscribers with the password sent via email.

New research tries to tease out whether our closest animal relatives can be selfless