A large-scale animal study has revealed something rather interesting about yawning: Vertebrates with larger brains and more neurons tend to have longer-lasting yawns. And giraffes don't yawn.

New research found colour played a major role skewing researcher bias — pretty, vibrant flowers get more scientific attention than dull plants, regardless of their ecological significance.

In the 150 years since Charles Darwin speculated that humans originated in Africa, the number of species in the human family tree has exploded, but so has the level of dispute concerning early human evolution. A new review looks at the major discoveries in hominin origins since Darwin's works and argues that fossil apes can inform us about essential aspects of ape and human evolution, including the nature of our last common ancestor.

New research combines cutting-edge engineering with animal behaviour to explain the origins of efficient swimming in nature’s underwater acrobats: seals and sea lions.

One mammal, the long-tailed planigale, can weigh less than a 10-cent coin. But it's ferocious, bringing down far larger prey with persistent, savage biting to the head and neck

Sometimes, not adapting is the best adaptation.

Artists’ intuition instead of science drive most facial reconstructions of extinct species. Some researchers hope to change that.

Two research groups have turned human skin cells into structures resembling an early-stage human embryo, paving the way for exciting new research avenues, and opening up some tricky ethical questions.

Neandertals -- the closest ancestor to modern humans -- possessed the ability to perceive and produce human speech, according to a new study published by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam and graduate student Alex Velez.

A small team of researchers from France, Italy and the U.S., has found evidence that suggests Sahelanthropus tchadensis was not a hominin, and thus was not the earliest known human ancestor. In their paper published in Journal of Human Evolution, the group describes their study of the fossilized leg bone and what it showed them.

An important cell in mice and humans' immune systems has been shown to have gut-healing properties in mice with a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Lots of us are feeling pretty anxious about the destruction of the natural world. It turns out, humans aren't the only ones stressing out—by analyzing hormones that accumulate in fur, researchers found that rodents and marsupials living in smaller patches of South America's Atlantic Forest are under more stress than ones living in more intact forests.

Beautiful diagrams exploring the nervous system from two pioneers in the field.

The first complete map of a platypus genome has just been released, and it's every bit as strange as you'd expect from a creature with 10 sex chromosomes, a pair of venomous spurs, a coat of fluorescent fur, and skin that 'sweats' milk.

Many botanists dispute idea of plant sentience, but study of climbing beans sows seed of doubt

Octopuses are vulnerable, like a snail without a shell, so they have to really use their wits to stay alive in the dangerous ocean.

The werewolf mouse

In bacterial battles, there is more than just direct killing. Some bacteria even challenge their prey by destroying their bacterial houses. We could learn a lot from these microscopic combats for our own fights against bacterial superbugs.