HS-LS4-5
Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in: (1) increases in the number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species.
-
AnimalsAs the tropics warm, some birds are shrinking
Migratory birds are getting smaller as temperatures climb, studies had showed. New evidence shows dozens of tropical, nonmigratory species are, too.
-
AnimalsScientists 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.
-
Animals‘Penis worms’ could have been the original hermits
These soft-bodied critters lived in abandoned shells about 500 million years ago, a new study suggests.
By Sid Perkins -
AnimalsExplainer: The age of dinosaurs
Take a trip back to the Mesozoic Era to explore how geologic events, ecosystems and evolution were connected during the so-called age of dinosaurs.
By Beth Geiger -
AnimalsCloning boosts endangered black-footed ferrets
A cloned ferret named Elizabeth Ann brings genetic diversity to a species that nearly went extinct in the 1980s.
-
AnimalsDinosaur families appear to have lived in the Arctic year-round
Fossils of baby dinosaurs in northern Alaska challenge the idea that northern dinosaurs only spent their summers in the high Arctic.
By Nikk Ogasa -
AnimalsLet’s learn about whales and dolphins
Whales, dolphins and porpoises are all cetaceans — mammals that live in water and have a streamlined body similar to a fish.
-
FossilsDinosaur-killing asteroid radically changed Earth’s tropical forests
The asteroid collision initially reduced the diversity in what had been sunny tropical rainforests. In time, the forests would become permanently darker.
-
FossilsAn ancient hippo-sized reptile may have been a speedy beast
An Anteosaurus was a hefty reptile with a large snout. Its fossil skull hints that it may have moved fast for its time.
-
Health & MedicineBringing COVID-19 vaccines to much of world is hard
The price of not vaccinating nearly everyone across the world could be a longer pandemic and more troubling variants of the new coronavirus.
-
AnimalsA new chameleon species may be the world’s tiniest reptile
The newly described reptiles live in the northern forests of Madagascar. Deforestation there may also leave them on the brink of extinction.
-
AnimalsHow do you build a centaur?
A centaur has the torso of a human and the body of a horse. It may sound cool, but it wouldn’t work very well.