Exceptionally preserved fossils from China reveal that bryozoans were already thriving during the Cambrian explosion.

One of the most important steps in the evolution of modern mammals was the development of highly sensitive hearing. The middle ear of mammals, with an eardrum and several small bones, allows us to ...

The water-to-land transition stands as one of the most significant events in vertebrate evolution, giving rise to the two major groups of living land vertebrates—amniotes and lissamphibians—which ...

As early humans spread from lush African forests into grasslands, their need for ready sources of energy led them to develop a taste for grassy plants, especially grains and the starchy plant tissue ...

Reconstruction of a Late Triassic landscape (approximately 215 million years ago). A lagerpetid, a close relative of pterosaurs, is perched on a rock, observing pterosaurs flying overhead. Tübingen, ...

Long before oceans teemed with life, Earth endured relentless violence. Asteroids slammed into its surface again and again, ...

It's easy to take for granted that with the flick of a lighter or the turn of a furnace knob, modern humans can conjure flames — cooking food, lighting candles or warming homes. For much of our ...

Over 300 million years ago, a minnow-sized fish died and fell to the bottom of a prehistoric swamp near the village of ...

Modern cells are complex chemical entities with cytoskeletons, finely regulated internal and external molecules, and genetic material that determines nearly every aspect of their functioning. This ...