All sorts of animals easily recognisable as groups alive today appeared in the fossil record, from echinoderms (starfish, sea ...

Among the fossil finds were bilateral worm-like animals that may have anchored themselves to the seafloor, early comb jellies ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: When biologists refer to ‘complex life,’ they almost ...

Every multicellular organism, from tiny worms to humans, elephants, and whales, needs a way for their cells to connect with each other to form tissues, organs, and organize their overall body plan.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more. This ...

Much more difficult is learning to connect different types of stimuli or events, and predicting that one is linked to another. Such associative learning was most famously demonstrated when Ivan Pavlov ...

Scientists studying distant exoplanets believe that plant life on some worlds could appear red rather than green. The reason lies in the type of light emitted by the host star and how organisms evolve ...

If you are leasing a car, what’s the point of paying thousands of dollars due at lease signing? My contract says tax, title, fees and licensing — but then wouldn’t I have to pay that again at the end ...

Scientists in Japan have discovered a previously unknown giant virus, offering new insight into this enigmatic category of viruses – and possibly also into the origins of multicellular life. The virus ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

Scientists at Nagoya University in Japan have identified the genes that allow an organism to switch between living as single cells and forming multicellular structures. This ability to alternate ...

Unicellular organisms show surprising complexity In a paper appearing in Nature Genetics, researchers discover that in more "primitive" unicellular organisms, both the adenine and the cytosine bases ...