Birds are the most diverse land vertebrate on the planet, and now scientists have constructed a complete evolutionary tree of the 11,000 or so known species. This data came from hundreds of studies ...

Tree thinking is a pedagogical approach that emphasises the interpretation and construction of phylogenetic trees to elucidate evolutionary relationships. In the context of evolutionary biology ...

This rainforest tree solved one of evolution’s hardest problems. Here’s how it evolved to use tension and geometry to fire ...

The three-dimensional shape of a protein can be used to resolve deep, ancient evolutionary relationships in the tree of life, according to a study in Nature Communications. It is the first time ...

Why do you have five fingers? Why not ten, or twenty, or one? Why do so many animals have five fingers? Five seems to be the perfect number for most hands. Oddly, the first vertebrates to come onto ...

Spider webs present an intriguing challenge to evolutionary biologists. These finely honed death traps come in many forms, from the trampoline-like construction of the sheet web spider, to the ...

The Magic Kingdom has the regal Cinderella Castle. With Epcot, it's the gleaming and futuristic Spaceship Earth. These are Disney's theme park icons, which appear in photographs and advertising so ...