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Opinion: Not so unique – the chimpanzee Stone Age, and our place among...
This is the 50th article for this blog. I’ve been writing for it for over six months now, and I pleasantly surprised that I’m still finding the enthusiasm to write for it regularly, and that people...
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Human cone cell lets mice see in new colours
While humans have three types of colour-detecting cells, mice and most other mammals have just two. But when a group of scientists gave mice the human gene for a third colour detector, they were able...
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Death of dinosaurs did not lead to rise of modern mammals
New research has disproved the idea that the extinction of the dinosaurs allowed mammals the chance to take over the earth. Modern mammal groups only diversified sometime after the mass extinction. But...
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Chimps have more adaptive genetic changes than humans
According to new research, chimpanzee genes have shown more adaptive changes than those of humans. The media widely reported the results as evidence that chimps are ‘more evolved’ than humans. But as I...
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Chimps show that actions spoke louder than words in language evolution
Chimpanzees and bonobos use gestures more flexibly and adaptively than other forms of communication. These gestures, and not words, may have been the starting point for the evolution of human language....
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Living optic fibres bypass the retina’s back-to-front structure
The human retina is back-to-front. Its silly structure means that light has to cross a tangle of nerves and blood vessels before it reaches the light sensors at the back. Now, scientists have found...
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Orang-utan study suggests that upright walking may have started in the trees
A common theory of human evolution says that after our ancestors descended from the trees, they went form walking on four legs to two. But a new study in orang-utans could overturn that theory, by...
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Inner ear size can predict a mammal’s agility
The semicircular canals of an animal’s inner ear controls its sense of balance. Their size can tell us whether an animal is slow and ponderous or fast and agile. They can even help us to reconstruct...
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Bone-crushing super-wolf went extinct during last Ice Age
Being confronted with a pack of wolves is bad enough, but if you happened to be in Alaska some 12,000 years ago, things would be much, much worse. Back then, the icy forests were patrolled by a sort of...
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Whales evolved from small aquatic hoofed ancestors
Travel back in time to about 50 million years ago and you might catch a glimpse of a small, unassuming animal walking on slender legs tipped with hooves, by the rivers of southern Asia. It feeds on...
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