To help exemplify the overall phenomenon of flying foxes shrinking, two specimens from the Field Museum's collections. The smaller specimen on the left is from 1995; the larger specimen on the right is from 1948. (Field Museum via SWNS) The world’s biggest…
The origin of Earth's water is one of those foundational issues that explains our planet's habitability. The idea that water was delivered by comets and asteroids has been on the minds of planetary scientists for a long time. Both types…
The world’s biggest bats are shrinking, reveals new research. Flying fox fruit bats are getting smaller — and it may be down to human hunters, according to the study. Comparisons of the bats with five-foot-wingspans collected over time in Madagascar suggest…
Madagascan flying foxes, easy targets for hunters, have shrunk since the 1980s Malagasy flying foxes (Pteropus rufus) (shown) have skulls that are 6 percent smaller than they were prior to the 1980s. Large-scale hunting by humans may be the reason. These big bats…
A review argues that zebrafish's extra round of whole genome duplication 350 million years ago created duplicated gene pairs whose joint study reveals how protein function, regulation, and disease mechanisms evolve.
A combination of advanced methods Materials provided by University of Konstanz. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. This Alien Planet Should Have Lost Its Atmosphere Billions of Years Ago A Routine Blood Test Could Predict Dementia Risk…
Not ready for Pro? Join Live Science Plus Want more Life's Little Mysteries? Developing research suggests that ancient interbreeding wasn't random — it was socially patterned, directional and far more complicated than the headlines suggest. Some of the answers, it turns…
Published Oct 29, 2026 10:00 AM EDT It’s the stuff of nightmares. A bat the size of a large-breed puppy with five-foot-wide wingspans darting across the sky. But don’t worry. The giant flying foxes want fruit, not your blood. However, biologists do have…
Comets may have been far less important to the origins of life on Earth than a long-standing theory suggests. New calculations indicate that delivering useful amounts of fragile, life-related molecules would have required an unusually lucky combination of events. Comets…
A new study of eight field bindweed accessions from Marsa Matrouh, Egypt, shows that flower color biotypes carry distinct morphological and genetic signatures, yet geography outweighs color in shaping genetic clustering.
How life changes over time: natural selection and adaptation, human origins and our extinct relatives, and how life began.
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