A study from Tel Aviv University, the first of its kind on mammals, has found that bats living in urban environments give birth, on average, about 2.5 weeks earlier than bats living in rural areas. The researchers attribute this difference in birthing tim

Short snouts and a flat profile—within a span of 100 years, humans have significantly changed the shape of the skulls of German domestic pigs. According to a team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), this is likely down to new breeding pr

Schools of fish are mesmerizing examples of collective animal behavior. Thousands of individuals move in near-perfect synchrony, despite each fish having only a limited view of their surroundings. How do they achieve such effortless coordination with mini

Soft tissue preservation in fossils does not seem to depend upon the species, age or burial environment of the fossils in question, according to new research from North Carolina State University. The work, published in Scientific Reports, provides further

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered new details about how the human genome produces instructions for creating proteins and cells, the building blocks of life, according to a pioneering new study published in Science Advances.

Strep throat, something we've all had at some point in our lives, is caused by the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes. Infection by Streptococcus can be fatal in serious cases and is the leading cause of death among flesh-eating diseases, resulting in over

Our guts are home to trillions of bacteria, and research over the last few decades has established how essential they are to our physiology—in health and disease. A new study from EMBL Heidelberg researchers shows that gut bacteria can bring about profoun

Evolution is traditionally associated with a process of increasing complexity and gaining new genes. However, the explosion of the genomic era shows that gene loss and simplification is a much more frequent process in the evolution of species than previou

Public posts on social media platforms shed light on the extent and nature of prolific illegal wildlife hunting in Lebanon, research in Oryx, published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora, has found.

Nature is full of impostors, and many of them are found in the insect world. Certain species, such as the bee fly or the ant spider, are experts at misdirection and their ability to confuse predators or prey is on a par with that of John Travolta in Face/

An international research team has described a newly discovered algae species Streptofilum arcticum and its cell functions for the first time in a recent publication in the journal Environmental Microbiology.

Large-scale ground-mounted solar parks are relatively new phenomena. Over time, ideas have been put forward about how they can accommodate biodiversity, and some parks are indeed becoming more multifunctional—for example, by providing habitats for plants,