All articles tagged with #darwin
A Nature Communications study by Mehdi Habibi, Neil Ribe, and Daniel Bonn shows lugworms defecate against gravity and produce a constant-width poop coil that follows elastic rope-coiling physics, revealing universal patterns in fecal morphology and linking Darwin’s worm-focused work to broader functional morphology and soil fertility, with researchers even planning a second poop emoji for Unicode.
Darwin argued that human morality grows from social instincts, amplified by memory and language, with conscience arising when remembered actions clash with social norms under others’ scrutiny; manners and restraint are not enemies of instinct but refined expressions shaped by memory and public judgment, grounding civilization in evolved social tendencies rather than divine or purely rational forces.
Researchers studying blind cave-dwelling fish across three Southern states report rapid, cave-specific adaptations in darkness, suggesting evolution can occur underground and offering a fresh perspective on Darwin’s ideas about where and how evolutionary change happens.
Nature’s News & Views threads a 1920s defense of drawing as a fundamental form of expression with Darwin’s 1876 observation of a squirrel nibbling cherry blossoms, using archival insight to explore how art, observation, and natural history enrich our understanding of the natural world.
Scientists analyzed the Chicago Archaeopteryx fossil, a pigeon-sized specimen from Solnhofen limestone, using CT scanning and UV light to expose preserved soft tissue and long wing tertials. The find provides clear evidence that this early feathered creature could fly and reinforces Darwin’s 1859 prediction that transitional forms would appear in the fossil record, refining our understanding of how flight evolved in dinosaurs and birds.
A developer ports Darwin to the Nintendo Wii and boots OS X 10.0 on the console with a custom bootloader and patched kernel, showing OS X can run on PowerPC hardware outside traditional Macs, though performance is limited and it boots from an SD card.
Chicago’s Archaeopteryx fossil, unusually well-preserved with soft tissues, was CT-scanned and examined under UV light, revealing detailed anatomy from snout to tail and long tertial feathers. The findings suggest this bird could fly and imply that flight evolved more than once among dinosaurs, lending fresh support to Darwin’s theory of evolution.
A global online experiment with 4,000+ participants tested whether humans' sound preferences align with those of other animals when judging mating calls from 16 species. Using audio recordings manipulated to isolate traits, the study found a broad overlap: humans tended to pick calls that animals also prefer, and when they did, choices were about 50 milliseconds faster. Both groups favored acoustic adornments and ancestral sounds, though humans showed a stronger preference for lower pitches; factors like training or occupation did not predict alignment. The authors conclude the results broadly support Darwin's idea that a common sensory basis underlies aesthetic taste across species, while noting limits and proposing future research.
Scientists used Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS) to analyze preservation liquids inside Charles Darwin’s sealed Beagle-era specimens without opening the jars, identifying fluids in about 78% of samples and revealing historical preservation methods for noninvasive museum conservation.
Researchers propose that vertebrate eyes originated from a single ancestral eye in ancient invertebrates around 560 million years ago, later splitting into two—offering a potential answer to how the complex eye evolved and addressing Darwin’s long-standing questions.
Researchers re-examined five large vertebrae found near Darwin, Australia, and concluded they belong to a previously unknown giant shark from the early Cretaceous Cardabiodontidae, about 115 million years old, reaching up to 26 feet (8 m) and weighing around 3,000 kg. This finding, published in Communications Biology in 2025, pushes back the emergence of giant sharks by ~15 million years and provides rare insight into cartilage-preserving fossils that reveal the anatomy of these prehistoric predators.
Researchers found that more than 20 bird species across four continents share nearly identical warning cries for brood parasites; these calls are learned through social transmission but rest on an innate instinct, representing a rare case of a vocalization that blends learned meaning with an inborn response and offering clues about how language could evolve from instinctive sounds.
Scientists used portable spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) to peek inside Charles Darwin’s 200-year-old preserved specimen jars at the Natural History Museum without opening them. The technique identified preservation fluids in about 80% of jars (mammals/reptiles often in formalin then ethanol, invertebrates in formaldehyde-based mixtures), with 15% partially identifiable and 6.5% not confidently identified. The method helps conserve delicate collections while guiding storage practices across museums, and the study was published in ACS Omega (2026).
A new theory suggests that the molecular clock, which estimates the timing of evolutionary events, may have sped up during major evolutionary transitions, potentially explaining the 30-million-year gap between the predicted age of the common ancestor of complex animals and their first fossil appearance, thus aligning Darwin's theory with fossil evidence.
A recent study explores the genetic and molecular basis of the evolution of upright walking in humans, highlighting its significance as a key trait that distinguishes humans from other primates, building on Darwin's theories of human evolution.