The short answer is no. An individual of one species cannot, during its lifetime, turn into another species. But your question helps us think about life, evolution and what it means to be human.
- Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology, The University of Melbourne
Scientists say humans are pretty similar to chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. So why don’t we have fur like they do?
The goal of identifying leadership attributes that translate into team success remains as elusive in sport as it does in other spheres of human endeavour.
Is a woman’s longing for a child evolution at work, or social conditioning? And what about those who don’t want kids? Are they defying nature? Probably not, as almost everyone wants sex.
Most of us have experienced the overwhelming urge to yawn in response to another person yawning – but we’re not the only species to do this. Research published in PeerJ today shows bonobos – our…
Research claiming that men are to blame for menopause has gone viral in the popular media in the past week. But does the theoretical model’s fundamental assumption – that men prefer young women – stack…
Ancient camels up to 29% larger than their modern-day cousins may have roamed the High Arctic of Canada around 3.5 million years ago, according to a new study of a fossil found in the region. The study…
Colour is an extraordinary motivator. We sensibly caution against waving a red rag to a bull to avoid provocation – worthy but curious advice, since bulls cannot distinguish red from other colours. We…
Writing almost 140 years ago in his book Naturalist in Nicaragua, the European naturalist Thomas Belt engaged in a lively debate about why certain breeds of dogs in tropical America were hairless. The…
Welcome to Peer Review, a new series in which we ask leading academics to review books written by people in the same field. Here Mark Elgar, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Melbourne…
As a society, we seem to be obsessed by sex. So wondering out loud why we have it is likely to invite a highly bemused response. And yet sex remains one of the great, enduring mysteries of evolutionary…
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