A rare, nearly complete fossil of an extinct North American porcupine helped me and my colleagues solve a decades-long debate about how the modern North American porcupine evolved from its ancestors.Published in Current Biology, our paper argues that North American porcupine ancestors may well date back 10 million years, but they wouldn’t be recognizable until about 8 million years later.By comparing the bone structure of porcupines across North America and South America, we determined that fo ...read more
It has been over 10 months since the on-again, off-again eruption near Grindavík in Iceland began. Since then, multiple eruptions have tapped a source of magma at the base of the crust under the island nation. That magma made its way to the surface to eruption as spectacular lava fountains and flows that have covered a significant area of real estate near the small fishing village and Blue Lagoon hydrothermal area.Thankfully, there has been only one death from a worker falling into a crack whil ...read more
In a world so thoroughly reshaped by human hands, animals often bump into novel ecological conditions — problems evolution didn’t prepare them for. Plastic items look like food, but they’re indigestible; artificial lights look like stars, but they’re useless in navigation; dead logs look like prime real estate, but they’re often bound for the woodchipper. Natural selection couldn’t foresee all these deadly new surprises, known as “evolutionary traps,” and thus, animals lack the b ...read more
Just like people confronted with a sea of options at the grocery store, bees foraging in meadows encounter many different flowers at once. They must decide which ones to visit for food, but it isn’t always a straightforward choice.Flowers offer two types of food: nectar and pollen, which can vary in important ways. Nectar, for instance, can fluctuate in concentration, volume, refill rate, and accessibility. It also contains secondary metabolites, such as caffeine and nicotine, which can be eit ...read more
What is the first thing you do in the morning after you awaken? Many people immediately check their phones for notifications of messages, alerts and social media updates by their social ties.Ninety-seven percent of U.S. adults report owning a cellphone, with 90% reporting that they own a smartphone.While some researchers and media outlets portray phone use as detrimental, the reality is that the effects of technology use, including phones, vary depending on multiple factors. These include the am ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine