Evolution

For more than a century, biologists assumed that the bony plates found in the skin of lizards – nature's chain mail – were an ancient feature that some lineages inherited and others later lost. But new evidence suggests this is entirely wrong.

When COVID-19 lockdowns emptied city streets, urban environments changed almost overnight. New research suggests that Los Angeles city birds responded just as quickly, with measurable shifts in beak shape in offspring born during the lockdown period.

A 26-ft deep excavation in Indonesia has revealed that humans and a hominin species that pre-dates humans used the same cave. The enticing possibility even exists that both species overlapped, sharing the space at the same time.

Americans are being urged to be extra vigilant, as a new influenza A variant is spreading more rapidly and evading our abilities to fight it off. With more than 110,000 hospitalizations so far, scientists expect this wave to worsen as the season peaks.

Once thought an exclusive human skill, the ability to make fire on demand has long been seen as a turning point in our evolutionary story. But new research suggests Neanderthals also mastered fire-making hundreds of thousands of years before Homo sapiens.

It's that time of year – and my personal favorite corner of science to look back on – when we recap the many fascinating discoveries in the plant and animal kingdom in 2025. Orcas have again made news, but no luxury yachts were hurt in the process.

Dinosaurs may be long extinct, but 2025 made it clear that they’re anything but settled science. New fossils, reanalyses of famous specimens and increasingly sophisticated tools have helped us learn more about how they lived, moved, fed and evolved.

Step aside, Van Gogh. New research shows that several orb-weaving species create giant web-mounted “doppelgängers” convincing enough to confuse potential predators. It’s a clever form of deception that nudges the line between instinct and ingenuity.

The culprit behind the mysterious disappearance of one of the most advanced urban civilizations at the time, contemporaries to Mesopotamians and Egyptians, has finally been identified: a series of severe droughts that dried rivers 4,000 years ago.

New research is adding to the body of evidence showing Neanderthals indulged in expressing abstract behavior, this time with archaeologists finding evidence of pencil-like crayons that were likely used to make symbolic art.

Most pet dogs carry a little wolf inside them; tiny snippets of wolf DNA that slipped into dog genomes after domestication. Now a new study has found almost two-thirds of dog breeds have a small amount of wolf genes, including some breeds you wouldn't expect.

Bears look like textbook mammals, but hidden in their evolutionary history are two dramatic departures from the rules of growth and adaptation. Scientists have now unlocked when, and how, ancient bears broke the rules and hacked nature out of need.