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…
Articles on Evolutionary biology
Displaying 141 - 160 of 187 articles
Many people believe that what was found in Liang Bua Cave on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2003-2004 was some variety of hobbit-like human or prehuman. Our research published today argues that it…
The “Tree of Lepidoptera” - comprising butterflies, moths and related species - has been mapped back to their earliest common…
What is it that makes rockstars so attractive to the opposite sex? Turns out Charles Darwin had it pegged hundreds of years ago – and it has a lot to do with peacocks. In The Descent of Man, and Selection…
How can animals, from ants to people, form social groups with individuals working successfully together for a common good? So Charles Darwin asked in 1859, perceiving the existence of cooperative behaviour…
One of the most important questions we can ask – and one that continues to take up much of the time of scientists, philosophers and the religious minded alike – is why are humans so different to the rest…
The use of tools is one example of the growing capacity for analytical thought and invention in apes and early humans. The earliest flint-knapped stone cutting tools date from around 2.6 million years…
Males will mate with anything. Well, that is the general view, one that exists because of a simple biological underpinning: females are reproductively limited by costly gestation, while males are…
Only two decades ago, when I was starting my PhD studies at the University of California in Berkeley, there was talk about the death of anatomy as a research subject. That hasn’t happened. Instead the…
A chemical found in hair bleach may help answer questions about the origins of life and explain why new life does not emerge on modern Earth. Hydrogen peroxide may have helped transform RNA (ribonucleic…
Writing good science exam questions is hard. Getting the wording right, making sure that what you are asking about is clear, pitching the question at the right level, takes time, lots of experience and…
Many theories have been proposed for the evolution of dark skin pigmentation – and a new paper revives one of the oldest: that skin cancer was a more potent selective force for the evolution of protective…
Lets face it – without a face no-one would recognise us, nor would we be able to guess what others might be thinking or feeling. Faces and their subtle degrees of symmetry and expression have defined human…
A century-old mystery about how ancient freshwater fishes breathe has finally been put to rest, thanks to a study published today in Nature Communications by me and a team of ichthyologists. The fishes…
New research on invasive species has cast doubt on the prevailing theory developed by Charles Darwin, giving us a new way to predict and model species when they are introduced. Invasive animals such as…
In the field of animal behaviour, there is one topic that is almost guaranteed to get your study in the popular press: showing how an animal behaves just like humans. This can be solving problems, using…
If you read about the record-breaking “fatberg” lurking under Kingston recently and reacted the same way as me - “Oh my God - a gob of fat in the London sewers as big as a bus - that’s disgusting!” - you’ll…
We all know that weather is not the same as climate, but it is surprising how our perceptions of global warming vary according to what we see outside our window. In the UK for example, last year’s washed-out…
Wisdom teeth, the palmaris longis tendon, ear wiggling: these qualities were desirable millions of years ago, but due to changes in our diet and environment, are slowly disappearing. However, such features…
The secret behind the size differences of mammal families has been found by Monash University scientists. The research found…
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Emeritus Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW
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Senior Lecturer, Centre for Behaviour and Evolution, Newcastle University
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Mark Elgar is a Friend of The Conversation.
Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology, The University of Melbourne
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Jenny Graves is a Friend of The Conversation.
Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor's Fellow, La Trobe University
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Postdoctoral Researcher , The University of Melbourne
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Senior lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, University of Bristol
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Professor of Avian Behavioural Ecology, Macquarie University
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PhD Researcher, Nature and Function of Human Nonverbal Vocalisations, University of Sussex
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Lecturer, Macquarie University
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Postdoctoral Researcher of Evolutionary Biology, University of Pennsylvania
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Research fellow, University of Sydney
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Sexual health researcher, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
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Associate Professor, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland