Evolution

Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb talks about his book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.

Juvenile ravens performed just as well as chimps and orangutans in a battery of intelligence tests—except for assays of spatial skills. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Fossils of small, delicate animals may reveal the early history of gigantic flying reptiles

X-ray scans of ancient Egyptian cat, bird and snake mummies show details never seen before

Under the right circumstances, indiscriminate mating with both males and females can enhance animals’ evolutionary success

Evidence of the ancient humans was limited to a cave in Siberia. But now scientists have found genetic remains of the Denisovans in China. Christopher Intagliata reports. 

Charcoal dating back nearly 2,000 years show the ancestral Puebloans used the ice for drinking water during droughts

Chipmunklike animals that lived among the dinosaurs appear to have been social creatures, which suggests that sociality arose in mammals earlier than scientists thought. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Here are some brief reports about science and technology from around the world, including one, from the dormant volcano Llullaillaco in Chile, about a mouse that is the highest-dwelling mammal ever documented.

Aerial photography highlights the effect humankind is having on the earth

Horseflies misjudge landings on zebra patterns, compared with solid gray or black surfaces, which provides evidence for why evolution came up with the black-and-white pattern.

The concave-eared torrent frog's unusual ear anatomy lets it hear high-frequency calls, which gives a mating advantage to the littler males that sing soprano.