A common element in “Star Trek” and other science fiction is their depiction of humanoid alien species. If life exists ...

A fish thought to be evolution’s time capsule just surprised scientists. A detailed dissection of the coelacanth — a 400-million-year-old species often called a “living fossil” — revealed that key ...

Learn more about new research that analyzed 16,000 ancient genomes and discovered that natural selection hasn’t slowed down.

One hundred years ago, the small town of Dayton, Tenn., became the unlikely stage for one of the most sensational trials in American history. A local substitute teacher, John Scopes, was charged with ...

Snails on a tiny rocky islet evolved before scientists' eyes. The marine snails were reintroduced after a toxic algal bloom wiped them out from the skerry. While the researchers intentionally brought ...

Unfortunately, this book can't be printed from the OpenBook. If you need to print pages from this book, we recommend downloading it as a PDF. Visit NAP.edu/10766 to get more information about this ...

Evolution has been known as survival of the fittest, however the fittest may also have been simply the luckiest. Though genetics are a driving force of evolution, many evolutionary changes were a ...

Hidden within fish DNA are powerful genetic twists that may explain one of nature’s biggest mysteries: how new species form so quickly. In Lake Malawi, hundreds of cichlid fish species evolved at ...

A 30-year-long study of a small population of marine snail shows how evolution can adapt to environmental changes quite rapidly. This study revealed how a specific ecotype of the snail changed its ...

The discovery of an ancient snake fossil has changed the way that scientists view the evolution of snakes. About one hundred ...