Daniel Rourke /stream

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The world's first known human cannibals ate each other to satisfy their nutritional needs, concludes a new study of the remains of cannibal feasts consumed about one million years ago. The…

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Are signs and meanings just as vital to living things as enzymes and tissues? Liz Else investigates a science in the making EVERY so often, something shows up on the New…

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Parasites commonly manipulate host behaviour, and among the most dramatic examples are diverse fungi that cause insects to die attached to leaves. This death-grip behaviour functions to place insects in an…

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So what would happen if there were none? Would anyone or anything miss them? Nature put this question to scientists who explore aspects of mosquito biology and ecology, and unearthed some…

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In the latest exploration into the universe of organisms inhabiting our bodies, microbiologists have discovered new viral genes in faeces. They find that the composition of virus populations inhabiting the tail…

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A spider that only eats ants is choosy about which body parts of its prey it devours based on their nutritional value. These new findings are the first to demonstrate that…

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Want to know what life will look like on other planets? Look no farther than these five creatures, who are already prepared for life on Saturn's moon Titan - or in…

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The world’s smallest horse was born in late April on a farm in New Hampshire. Weighing in at 6 pounds at birth, Einstein appears to have beaten the previous record holder…

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Two reports of chimpanzees tending their dead provide poignant examples of how humanity’s closest relatives grieve for the dead, a behavior once thought unique to humans. In one report, two mothers…

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As ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continued to keep European airspace shut down over the weekend, affecting millions of travelers around the world, some government agencies and airlines clashed over the…

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Archaic humans such as Neanderthals may be gone but they're not forgotten — at least not in the human genome. A genetic analysis of nearly 2,000 people from around the world…

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The recent fatal attack of a SeaWorld trainer by the orca Tilikum has led to renewed questions about how humans should deal with potentially intelligent animals. Was Tilikum’s action premeditated, and…

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The arrow of time points in one direction only, from past to present to future. Now there's a fact—rather like Wittgenstein's observation "A is the same thing as A"—that is so…

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AS Man stands to Nature, so stands Art to Man. When Nature had developed in herself those attributes which included the conditions for the existence of Man, then Man spontaneously evolved.…

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How did life arise from inorganic matter? Our progress on this question has been impeded by a formidable cognitive barrier. Because we perceive a deep gap when we think about the…

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It turns out the Machiguenga — whose number system goes: one, two, three, many — are not alone in their thinking. Most people from non-Western cultures introduced to the Ultimatum Game…

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Are signs and meanings just as vital to living things as enzymes and tissues? Liz Else investigates a science in the making EVERY so often, something shows up on the New…

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Parasites commonly manipulate host behaviour, and among the most dramatic examples are diverse fungi that cause insects to die attached to leaves. This death-grip behaviour functions to place insects in an…

Bookmark

So what would happen if there were none? Would anyone or anything miss them? Nature put this question to scientists who explore aspects of mosquito biology and ecology, and unearthed some…

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In the latest exploration into the universe of organisms inhabiting our bodies, microbiologists have discovered new viral genes in faeces. They find that the composition of virus populations inhabiting the tail…

Bookmark

A spider that only eats ants is choosy about which body parts of its prey it devours based on their nutritional value. These new findings are the first to demonstrate that…

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The genomes of most modern humans are 1–4% Neanderthal — a result of interbreeding with the close relatives that went extinct 30,000 years ago, according to work by an international group…

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The world’s smallest horse was born in late April on a farm in New Hampshire. Weighing in at 6 pounds at birth, Einstein appears to have beaten the previous record holder…

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As ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continued to keep European airspace shut down over the weekend, affecting millions of travelers around the world, some government agencies and airlines clashed over the…

Bookmark

The recent fatal attack of a SeaWorld trainer by the orca Tilikum has led to renewed questions about how humans should deal with potentially intelligent animals. Was Tilikum’s action premeditated, and…

Bookmark

The arrow of time points in one direction only, from past to present to future. Now there's a fact—rather like Wittgenstein's observation "A is the same thing as A"—that is so…

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Though the term “herd behaviour” today is most often used when talking about financial markets, it originally described individuals in a group acting together without direction – for example an animal…

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How did life arise from inorganic matter? Our progress on this question has been impeded by a formidable cognitive barrier. Because we perceive a deep gap when we think about the…