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If you just look at their DNA, the various South American songbird populations all look pretty much the same. But their outward appearances and the songs they sing couldn't be more difficult. We're witnessing the birth of multiple new species. More »
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It's a well-worn cliche that moving to the big city after a lifetime of country-living can change you forever. That might actually be literally true for blackbirds, as moving to the city has begun to split their species in two. More »
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Three million years ago, a gene mutation switched off a sugar-making enzyme in early hominids. Our ancestors actually became unable to breed with those who still had the enzyme, possibly causing the emergence of our evolutionary grandparent, Homo erectus. More »
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We think of cancer as a disease, a form of runaway cell growth within an organism. But we might not have realized what cancers really are: separate, brand new parasitic species that evolve from and prey upon their human hosts. More »
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Accepted scientific wisdom holds that new species arise because of geographic separation - the same bird evolves differently on two different islands. But a new study overturns this idea, challenging the importance of environment as a driver of evolution. More »
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When an unknown insect starts showing up in ever-growing numbers in London, England, the most logical step would be to take one to some experts so they can identify it. What do you do when the insects first appear in the experts' own back yard, the Wildlife Garden outside the Natural History Museum? Even after checking it against the museum's collection of 28 million bug specimens, no one is sure what species this is. How could an entire species go undetected in an urban area until now? Or, stranger still, what could cause a totally new species to appear and flourish like this? More »
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