Dungeons & Dragons Is Shedding ‘Race’ in Gaming. Here’s Why It Matters
The nerd culture powerhouse is rebranding its elves, dwarfs and orcs, previously referred to as races, and moving towards use of the term species
Dungeons & Dragons Is Shedding ‘Race’ in Gaming. Here’s Why It Matters
The nerd culture powerhouse is rebranding its elves, dwarfs and orcs, previously referred to as races, and moving towards use of the term species
Social Media Is Junk Food for Information Foragers
Social media exploits our evolved need for information, feeding us fluff and outright misinformation. A new science of human collective behavior can help us retake control
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A Freeze-Dried Woolly Mammoth Has Yielded the First Ever Fossilized Chromosomes
For the first time, researchers have reconstructed the 3D structure of ancient genetic material, in this case from a 52,000-year-old mammoth
To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything
Nutrition influencers claim we should eat meat-heavy diets like our ancestors did. But our ancestors didn’t actually eat that way
Cuckoo Chicks Are Sleeper Agents in Evolutionary Arms Race
Cuckoos are “nest pirates” that lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, setting off an evolutionary arms race that leads to the development of new species
How Did Cockroaches Reach Global Domination?
A common species of cockroach hails from Asia, according to new research that tracks its spread around the globe
Glow-in-the-Dark Animals May Have Been around for 540 Million Years
Ancestors of so-called soft corals may have developed bioluminescence in the earliest days of deep-ocean living
How Humans Lost Their Tails
A newly discovered genetic mechanism helped eliminate the tails of human ancestors
An Evolutionary ‘Big Bang’ Explains Why Snakes Come in So Many Strange Varieties
Snakes saw a burst of adaptation about 128 million years ago that led to them exploding in diversity and evolving up to three times faster than lizards
‘Living Fossil’ Lizards Are Constantly Evolving—You Just Can’t See It
New research into the “stasis paradox” challenges the rules of evolution
New ‘Chicken from Hell’ Discovered
A newly identified “chicken from hell” species suggests dinosaurs weren’t sliding toward extinction before the fateful asteroid hit
Robotic Dinosaur Tests How Dinos (and Birds) Got Wings
Scientists built a robotic dinosaur to terrify grasshoppers, all in hopes of understanding how truly pathetic wings could offer prehistoric animals an evolutionary advantage