PBS
The Two Viruses That We’ve Had For Millions of Years
There’s one kind of herpesvirus that’s specific to one species of primate, and each virus split off from the herpesvirus family tree when the primate split off from its own tree. But of course, humans are a special kind of primate.
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The Real Story Of The Dodo Bird's (Current) Extinction
What’s the real story of the dodo? How did such a unique bird even evolve in the first place? And are we really responsible for its extinction?
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The Pandemic That Lasted 15 Million Years
Our DNA holds evidence of a huge, ancient pandemic, one that touched many different species, spanned the globe, and lasted for more than 15 million years.
PBS
The Oddest Couple in the Fossil Record
To figure out how Thrinaxodon and Broomistega became entombed together, scientists looked at the burrow itself, along with their fossilized bones. And it looks like their luck ran out, when a behavior that usually would’ve helped them...
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The Ghostly Origins of the Big Cats
All of today’s big cat species evolved less than 11 million years ago and yet their evolutionary history remains an almost total mystery. But scientists have recently discovered a major clue about the origins of the big cats, one that...
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The Extreme Hyenas That Didn't Last
Hyenas weren’t always able to eat bones. In fact, only a few million years ago, they lived very different lives.
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The Ancient Human Species With A Missing Body
Only a handful of Denisovan fossils have been identified. In the absence of actual body fossils, it’s impossible for us to reconstruct their morphology, right?
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Our Ancient Relative That Said 'No Thanks' To Land
Around the time that some of our fishapod relatives were crawling out of the water, others were turning around and diving right back in.
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How the Walrus Got Its Tusks
The rise and fall of ancient walruses, and how modern ones got their tusks, is a story that spans almost 20 million years. And while there are parts of the story that we’re still trying to figure out, it looks like tusks didn’t have...
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How Plate Tectonics Gave Us Seahorses
How did seahorses — one of the ocean’s worst swimmers — spread around the globe? And where did they come from in the first place?
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When Mammals Only Went Out At Night
For decades, scientists believed dinosaurs were diurnal and tiny mammals were nocturnal. But as researchers have uncovered more mammalian fossils and studied the biology of different dinosaur species, they’ve found some surprising results.
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When Ichthyosaurs Led a Revolution in the Seas
The marine reptiles Ichthyosaurs arose after The Great Dying, which wiped out at least 90 percent of life in the oceans, changing the seas forever and triggering a new evolutionary arms race between predator and prey.
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When Giant Scorpions Swarmed the Seas
Sea scorpions thrived for 200 million years, coming in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Over time, they developed a number of adaptations--from crushing claws to flattened tails for swimming. And some of them adapted by getting so big...
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These Creatures Were Darwin's Greatest Enemy
They may not look like much, but beneath that shell lies an evolutionary mystery - one that stumped the biggest names in natural history for over a hundred years.
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The Island of Huge Hamsters and Giant Owls
Back in the late Miocene epoch, there was an island--or maybe a group of islands-- in the Mediterranean Sea that was populated with fantastic giant beasts. It’s a lesson in the very strange, but very real, powers of natural selection.
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The Invisible Barrier Keeping Two Worlds Apart
In between two of the islands of Indonesia, there’s an ancient line that is both real and…not real.
PBS
The Forgotten Story of the Beardogs
Because of their strange combination of bear-like and dog-like traits, they’re sometimes confusingly called the beardogs. And even though you’ve never met one of these animals, the beardogs are key to understanding the history of an...
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Nautiloids Thrived For 500 Million Years Until These Guys Showed Up
Around 30 million years ago, a new group of predators began to push nautiloids from their former global range into a single remaining refuge. But who were these predators?
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The Sea Monster from the Andes
In 1977, a farmer was plowing his field on a plateau high in the Andes mountains when he stumbled upon a giant fossilized skeleton. How did this giant marine reptile end up high in the Andes Mountains?
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The Island of the Last Surviving Mammoths
The Wrangel Island mammoths would end up being the final survivors of a once-widespread genus. In their final years, after having thrived in many parts of the world for millions of years, the very last mammoths that ever lived...
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Is This The Oldest Dad In The Fossil Record?
Fossil evidence suggests Diictodon used burrows to breed, and that a parent stayed behind to feed and protect their young. And the parent that stayed behind? It might’ve been the male.
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Why Are There As Many Males As Females?
In almost every animal species on Earth, equal numbers of males and females are conceived. Why is that? Especially in populations like lions or elephant seals, where most males don’t get to mate? That’s survival of the laziest, not...
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What's The Most Successful Species on Earth?
There are now more than 7 billion human beings on Earth, and that got me wondering: How successful are we compared to other species? I take a look at out how our numbers stack up to some other domains of life. It turns out that biomass,...
Be Smart
What Would Happen if ONE MILLION Species Went Extinct?
A massive new study has just been released showing that human activities are threatening Earth’s other life forms in some very bad ways. One million species may be at risk of extinction. Just let that sink in. Isn’t the Anthropocene...