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Why is this optical illusion hardwired into our brain?

The Motion Aftereffect is an optical illusion in which stationary objects appear to be in motion if a person has just been looking at a moving background. And the effect appears to work on the deepest levels of our subconscious. We’ve known about this particular optical illusion for a long, long time – it was … Continued

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The mysterious remains of one of the world’s first organized religions

Homo sapiens may have had religion since the dawn of our evolution, but building vast monuments to our beliefs is a relatively recent development. And by “recent,” I mean 11,600 years ago. Archaeologists believe they’ve found the oldest temple ever built, in southern Turkey. Called Göbekli Tepe, it is perhaps the world’s first example of … Continued

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Laboratory yeast artificially evolve into multicellular organisms

One of the biggest evolutionary hurdles for life on Earth was the jump from single-celled to multi-cellular organisms…or at least, that’s what we thought. Scientists set out to replicate this evolutionary leap in laboratory conditions. It took them two months. There almost certainly wasn’t one single leap to multicellularity, and scientists suspect there were about … Continued

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Mayflies might just have the saddest, most perfectly evolved existence of any species

Mayflies spend a year awaiting their birth, and then most die after living just one day. Their sole purpose is to pass on their genes, and most never even bother eating…and that’s been the status quo for 100 million years. An ancient mayfly became trapped in amber all those millions of years ago, and her … Continued

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Why we won’t know when birds evolve

According to scientists, birds have been evolving in a very specific way. And it looks like, given their abilities, they’ll continue to evolve. We just won’t be able to see it. As we find out more about animals, we understand that the human being is a sadly hobbled beast. We lack the ability to sense … Continued

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Cambridge University Library lets you read all the notes Charles Darwin made in his books

Want to know what Charles Darwin was thinking when he read books about natural history? Now you can, thanks to a massive project at Cambridge University Library where Darwin’s book collection — complete with his notes in the margins — have been digitized, indexed, and put online. Here you can see a page from Thomas … Continued

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Our most ancient hominoid ancestors first left Africa 17 million years ago

When modern humans left Africa roughly 100 thousand years ago, it was only the last of several waves of hominoid migration that had previously included the likes of Neanderthals and Homo Erectus. Now a tooth in Germany reveals the original hominoid migration. A molar tooth was discovered in the Alpine region of southwestern Germany. 17 … Continued

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Evolution Continues To Divide Aspiring Beauty Queens

This year’s Miss USA pageant featured some very polarizing subject matter for our bevy of beautiful lasses to contend with. Like what they thought of evolution. The results were at least only kind of sad. Some of the girls’ trepidation is probably due to not wanting to wind up like Carrie Prejean did back in … Continued

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Female frogs literally can’t hear half the things that male frogs say

China’s concave-eared frogs are one of two amphibians that use ultrasonic frequencies to communicate. There’s only one small problem: the males and the females have evolved along such vastly separate lines that females are completely deaf to the males’ ultrasonic cries. Various mammals, including rodents, bats, and marine animals like dolphins and whales, use ultrasonic … Continued

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How evolutionary psychology proved some old folklore…and why both are wrong

There’s an old bit of folklore that children tend to more closely resemble their fathers than their mothers. There’s a possible evolutionary explanation for this, and one study seemed to confirm it all. Here’s why it’s all bogus. The basic problem with evolutionary psychology is that it can be used to explain practically anything if … Continued

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io9 Offers $2000 Bounty For Authentic Photos Of Cryptids

This summer, io9 is going cryptozoological. We’re offering a $2000 bounty to the person who sends us the best authentic photo or video of a “cryptid,” or mystery animal. And that’s just the beginning of Cryptid Summer. Illustration of Sasquatch by Rick Spears (get his book about cryptids here!); photograph of the beach by Pichugin … Continued

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Adultery runs rampant among the zebra finches

Like humans, zebra finches form monogamous partnerships in order to rear children. And, very much like us, these birds are also known to indulge in “extramarital” sex, even when these affairs serve no obvious evolutionary purpose. Both male and female zebra finches have shown signs of promiscuity, although only one of those is easy to … Continued

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Helping out strangers is hard-wired into human nature

Humans are the only animals who display loyalty to individuals we don’t personally know. Scientists had assumed this was a new development made possible by the rise of centralized governments. But it might actually be part of how we evolved. No country could exist – indeed, no group larger than a small village could exist … Continued

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Human mutation is much more unusual than we ever suspected

For the first time ever, we can track the number of genetic mutations in each generation of a human family. Humans are mutating at a downright glacial pace, with a shockingly tiny number of mutations passed on in each generation. Researchers have previously used various indirect methods to estimate just how many mutations are passed … Continued

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Why did humans and monkeys evolve to hate the color red?

Red is the color of anger and hatred, of imminent danger and deadly heat. Even the English language tells us that “seeing red” is a bad thing. And this aversion for red might go back to our earliest primate relatives. With all due respect for people who consider red their favorite color, the overwhelming cultural … Continued

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A heat-resistant worm that can live miles beneath the Earth’s surface

Until recently, most scientists believed that only single-celled creatures were capable of enduring life in the hot, high-pressure zone beneath Earth’s crust. Now they’ve discovered tiny worms (pictured above) who live as many as 2.2 miles below ground. What else will we find living deep inside the Earth? Here’s a report from this week’s Nature … Continued

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Too many good mutations can actually be bad for a species’ evolution

Mutation is one of the big driving forces behind evolution, as it can allow species to quickly gain the genetic tools necessary to survive and adapt. But even the perfect mutation can mean trouble if it can’t work with others. That’s the finding of researchers at the University of Houston, who recently concluded a five-year … Continued

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Fossilized teeth reveal that ancient women had to leave home to find mates

Your teeth can reveal a lot about you – including where you grew up. They’re also the part of you that’s most likely to endure long after you’ve died. Now some ancient teeth are revealing dating habits that date back a million years. Oxford researchers examined various fossils from our ancestor species Australopithecus. The remains … Continued

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Dunbar’s Number proves that you can’t realistically follow more than 150 friends on Twitter

Our maximum number of friends is actually determined by the size of our brains. Dunbar’s number says 150 friends is about the human limit, and that’s been true throughout history. Can human evolution withstand the insanity of social networking? In the 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar realized that the size of primate social groups increased … Continued

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The smell that caused ancient mammals’ brains to double in size

190 million years ago, there were no mammals on Earth. Instead, there were furry, mouse-like creatures no bigger than a paperclip. And they suddenly began to grow brains 10 times larger than their relative body size. What happened? The story of the mammalian brain’s rapid growth is well-known to paleontologists. The question is, which parts … Continued