Fossils

Fossils are used to reconstruct evolutionary history, but not all animals and plants become fossils and many fossils are destroyed before we can find them (e.g., the rocks that contain the fossils are destroyed by erosion). As a result, the fossil record has gaps and is incomplete, and we're missing data that we need to reconstruct evolutionary history. Now, a team of sedimentologists and stratigraphers examined how this incompleteness influences the reconstruction of evolutionary history. To their surprise, they found that the incompleteness itself is actually not such a big issue.

Archeologists say new findings might help resolve the debate about Clovis points and reshape how we think about what life was like roughly 13,000 years ago. After an extensive review of writings and artwork -- and an experiment with replica Clovis point spears -- a team of archaeologists says humans may have braced the butt of their weapons against the ground in a way that would impale a charging animal. The force would have driven the spear deeper into the predator's body, unleashing a more damaging blow than even the strongest prehistoric hunters would have been capable of by throwing or jabbing megafauna.

The veteran presenter adds authority to Secret Lives of Orangutans, a film about a family of endangered orangutans in Sumatra. File this new entry in his vast oeuvre under lovable but lightweight

Our ability to exert conscious control over our family sizes is unique – and can be transformational, says Christopher Wills

A big rethink of our planet’s early years adds to growing fossil, chemical and DNA evidence that Earth was only a few hundred million years old when life began

A new study shows how the mismatch between where fossils are preserved and where humans likely lived may influence our understanding of early human evolution.

A new study shows how the mismatch between where fossils are preserved and where humans likely lived may influence our understanding of early human evolution.

Up to 100,000 extraordinary species, from spiders and beetles to salamanders and fish, live in subterranean caves and cracks. They aren’t as safe down there as we thought

Male fireflies caught in an orb-weaver spider’s web start flashing in an unusual pattern, a deadly deception that seems to attract additional victims for the spider

The asteroid that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago probably came from the outer solar system.

The study found that the Port Askaig Formation, composed of layers of rock up to 1.1 km thick, was likely laid down between 662 to 720 million years ago during the Sturtian glaciation -- the first of two global freezes thought to have triggered the development of complex, multicellular life.

See the incredible shots that have won this year's BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology Image Competition

The noises made by organisms like ants and worms as they move around in the soil can be used to assess whether an ecosystem is in good shape

Scientists have known for centuries that sunflowers wobble in seemingly random ways as they grow – but it seems that those movements actually optimise how much light each plant gets

Is it worth including activated charcoal in your terrarium’s potting mix? James Wong isn’t convinced by this pricey product

From birds and bats to horses and great apes, Bill Schutt's seriously fun history of teeth, Bite, explains their role in both shaping evolution and our understanding of it

This week, we journey to the early 2030s, when machine learning first allowed us to communicate with sperm whales. Rowan Hooper tells us what they have to say

It's time to expect the unexpected, says Natalie Cabrol, one of the world's top astrobiologists and author of an authoritative book on the hunt for life's origins – and ET

Scientists have sequenced the largest genome of all animals, the lungfish genome. Their data help to explain how the fish-ancestors of today's land vertebrates were able to conquer land.

Ancient fossil beans about the size of modern limes, and among the largest seeds in the fossil record, may provide new insight into the evolution of today's diverse Southeast Asian and Australian rainforests, according to researchers who identified the plants.