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insects

Photo of a rove beetle standing on a leaf and arching its abdomen.
evolution

How Do New Organs Evolve? A Beetle Gland Shows the Way.

By Viviane Callier
August 16, 2021
Read Later

The evolution of a defensive gland in beetles shows how organs can arise from novel cells carving out new functional niches for their neighbors.

Harvard professor L. Mahadevan stands in a slightly cluttered office, holding an apple and a jar containing a miniature brain
Q&A

A Scientist Who Delights in the Mundane

By Steve Nadis
October 26, 2020
Read Later

From crumpled paper to termite mounds to three-sided coins, L. Mahadevan has turned the whole world into his laboratory.

Close-up photo of a carpenter ant queen carrying eggs.
evolution

How Two Became One: Origins of a Mysterious Symbiosis Found

By Viviane Callier
September 9, 2020
Read Later

Carpenter ants need endosymbiotic bacteria to guide the early development of their embryos. New work has reconstructed how this deep partnership evolved.

Photo of Scarlett Howard, a researcher at the University of Toulouse, working with honeybees
Q&A

Secrets of Math From the Bee Whisperer

By Susan D'Agostino
January 22, 2020
Read Later

As Scarlett Howard taught honeybees to do arithmetic, they showed her how fundamental numbers might be to all brains.

Photo of the female penis structure of the cave insect Neotrogla aurora.
Abstractions blog

Why Evolution Reversed These Insects’ Sex Organs

By Jordana Cepelewicz
January 30, 2019
Read Later

Among these cave insects, the females evolved to have penises — twice. The reasons challenge common assumptions about sex.

Art for "How Equality and Inequality Shape the Birds and the Bees"
Insights puzzle

Solution: ‘How Equality and Inequality Shape Birds and Bees’

By Pradeep Mutalik
November 9, 2018
Read Later

Puzzle solvers explored how evolution may have used negative and positive control mechanisms to shape the conflicting parental functions of reproduction and child rearing.

Art for "How Equality and Inequality Shape the Birds and the Bees"
Insights puzzle

How Equality and Inequality Shape the Birds and the Bees

By Pradeep Mutalik
October 17, 2018
Read Later

Two dynamic, seemingly opposing forces likely played an important role in the evolution of reproduction and child rearing in social animals like bees and humans.

Abstractions blog

How Insulin Helped Create Ant Societies

By Jordana Cepelewicz
August 14, 2018
Read Later

Evolution may have coopted an ancient metabolic mechanism to set social insects on the path toward one of the most puzzling behaviors found in nature.

Photo of Corina Tarnita 520px
Q&A

A Mathematician Who Decodes the Patterns Stamped Out by Life

By Joshua Sokol
December 20, 2017
Read Later

Corina Tarnita deciphers bizarre patterns in the soil created by competing life-forms.


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