HS-LS4-4

Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.

  1. Archaeology

    Our species may have reached Europe while Neandertals were there

    Archaeological finds from an ancient French rock-shelter show periodic settlements by both populations, just not at the same time.

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  2. Animals

    Mysterious kunga is the oldest known human-bred hybrid animal

    People bred these animals — part donkey, part wild ass — some 4,500 years ago, probably for use in fighting wars.

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  3. Animals

    Scientists discover the first true millipede

    The newfound deep-living species tunnels belowground using a whopping 1,306 legs!

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  4. Life

    Scientists Say: Adaptation

    This word refers to a feature of a living thing that helps it better survive in its environment — or the process of that feature evolving in a population.

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  5. Animals

    Will the woolly mammoth return?

    Scientists are using genetic engineering and cloning to try to bring back extinct species or save endangered ones. Here’s how and why.

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  6. Animals

    Cloning boosts endangered black-footed ferrets

    A cloned ferret named Elizabeth Ann brings genetic diversity to a species that nearly went extinct in the 1980s.

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  7. Microbes

    Explainer: Virus variants and strains

    When viruses become more infectious or better able to survive the body’s immune system, they become a type of variant known as a strain.

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  8. Genetics

    Just a tiny share of the DNA in us is unique to humans

    Some of these tweaks to DNA, however, may have played a role in brain evolution.

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  9. Archaeology

    Fossils unearthed in Israel reveal possible new human ancestor

    They come from a previously unknown Stone Age group that may represent a complex mashup of early members of our genus Homo.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Will we all need COVID-19 booster shots?

    Experts say not yet, but booster vaccines may be coming as new SARS-CoV-2 virus variants keep emerging.

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  11. Fossils

    Scientists Say: Dinosaur

    Dinosaurs emerged between 243 and 233 million years ago. While some died out 66 million years ago, others are still with us — birds.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Some young adults will volunteer to get COVID-19 for science

    Researchers will soon give some healthy people the new coronavirus. Their young volunteers have agreed to get sick to speed coronavirus research.

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