The Dogs of Chernobyl Are Experiencing Rapid Evolution, Study Suggests - MSN
The Dogs of Chernobyl Are Experiencing Rapid Evolution, Study Suggests MSN
The Dogs of Chernobyl Are Experiencing Rapid Evolution, Study Suggests MSN
Protect yourself from login alert scams with five security steps, including avoiding suspicious links, checking account activity and enabling two-factor authentication
The next time you call your car dealership, the voice on the other end may not belong to a human. As TechCrunch reports, the founders of Toma, an AI voice agent startup, pivoted from pitching to healthcare and finance companies to fielding calls from automotive salespeople desperate to offload some of their labor to AI agents. To hone their product, founders Monik Pamecha and Anthony Krivonos visited a dozen dealerships in the states of Oklahoma and Mississippi — no word on why they chose those specific locales — to get up close and personal with potential clients. Along with being fed home-cooked [...]
Preparations for the arrival of a visiting crew, the continued study of how humans adapt to microgravity and more highlight the sixth week of Expedition 73 on the International Space Station.
Astronauts track huge dust clouds over Canada and US | On the ISS this week June 2-6, 2025 Space
A long-running experiment finds a tiny particle is still acting weird niagara-gazette.comView Full Coverage on Google News
An accidental discovery at a planetarium opens a window into the universe's inner workings AppleValleyNewsNow.comAn accidental discovery at a planetarium opens a window into the universe’s inner workings AP NewsHow a new planetarium show helped scientists unlock a cosmic secret Yahoo
Scientists have unlocked one of the solar system's many secrets from an unexpected source: a planetarium show opening to the public on Monday.
Experts are certain, the next major volcanic eruption will cause climate chaos. Farmingdale Observer
NASA is launching a $488 million mission with its new telescope, which is expected to provide a lot of data. Farmingdale Observer
Chris Hadfield: ‘Worst space chore? Fixing the toilet. It’s even worse when it’s weightless’ The Guardian
New Measure Of The Universe’s Expansion Suggests Resolution Of A Conflict Eurasia ReviewNew Study Finds No Evidence of Tension in Hubble Constant Sci.NewsHow James Webb Space Telescope is solving the Hubble mystery and confirming the universe age WION
Even as Elon Musk's SpaceX launched a radio satellite into orbit on Saturday, the Pentagon and NASA are pushing his competitors to speed up the development of their own spacecraft, according to the Washington Post. CBS News New York journalist Ali Bauman has more.
New Tales and Emeteria made their public debut today with the reveal of Fading Echo, a new title in development for the PC and consoles.
Do the Plumes of Europa Carry Frozen Bacteria? Avi Loeb – MediumNew Israeli discovery could transform the hunt for alien life YnetnewsWhat life on Europa needs Phys.orgWhen the sun dies, could life survive on the Jupiter ocean moon Europa? SpaceIs Europa, Jupiter's ocean moon, the final haven for life once the sun dies? Here's what a recent study shows MSN
The Webb Telescope zeroes in on an undiscovered galaxy.
A bottlenose dolphin at the Brookfield Zoo Chicago gave birth to a calf early Saturday morning with the help of a fellow mom. Video of the birth inside the Illinois aquarium shows the 35-pound calf ejected into the water and...
NASA's Top 5 Technical Challenges Countdown: #4: Improved Navigation Universe Today
CNN interrupted for devastating Elon Musk news amid Donald Trump showdown Irish StarStarship’s ninth test creates problems for Elon Musk The Hill'Starship in space': See amazing photos from SpaceX megarocket's Flight 9 test mission SpaceFAA demands an accident investigation into SpaceX’s latest out-of-control Starship flight KOIN.comIncredible Views: SpaceX Starship Re-Entering Atmosphere Of Earth MSN
Every school around Australia is almost certain to have students who are victim-survivors of family and domestic violence.
You've heard of how mighty supernovas are, or of the ungodly amounts of energy released by gamma ray bursts. But astronomers have discovered a type of cosmic blast that puts all those to shame. They're called "extreme nuclear transients" (ENTs) — and they're quite literally the most powerful explosion witnessed since the dawn of time. What produces ENTs is appropriately catastrophic: a star, at least three times as massive as our Sun, being obliterated by a supermassive black hole. "We've observed stars getting ripped apart as tidal disruption events for over a decade, but these ENTs are different beasts, reaching [...]
“Very Odd” New Sea Monster Identified After Decades of Mystery SciTechDaily
DMV text scam alert: Fraudsters impersonating motor vehicle departments nationwide are sending threatening messages about unpaid tickets and tolls to steal your information.
Imagine a world where ageing is not just slowed but potentially reversed. Researchers are now exploring the mysteries of cell death to unlock this possibility.
Worm towers: Nematodes build living structures that puzzle scientists Earth.comFirst evidence of ‘living towers’ made of worms discovered in nature CNNWorms Use Their Bodies to Build Towers as a Wild Survival Strategy ScienceAlertThis ‘Tower of Worms’ Is a Squirming Superorganism Scientific AmericanWorms Caught Creating Superorganisms in the Wild for the First Time Indian Defence Review
Scientists Just Discovered a Lost Ancient Culture That Vanished 404 Media
The standard model of cosmology may be the best explanation we've got for why the universe is the way it is and how it all came to be. But it's not the only explanation. Enter black hole cosmology. It's a radical idea which proposes that the Big Bang — the rapid unraveling of an infinitely dense point that gave birth to the cosmos as we know it — actually took place in a black hole, which itself formed inside of a larger "parent" universe. Ergo, all of us — and every star, planet, and galaxy — are living inside one [...]
This week, Chinese researchers reported a nearly complete skull representing the first known sauropod species from East Asia. A team at the USDA identified viruses from a miticide-resistant parasitic mite causing honey bee colony collapses. And archaeologists report that the Philippines had a technologically advanced maritime culture 35,000 years ago.
The ancient city of Petra, Jordan, is home to the monument known as the Khaznah, or treasury, and buried directly beneath it is a tomb.
Federal agencies have warned that the recent attacks on Jewish people in the US, as well as the Israeli-Hamas fighting, could inspire more. The alert to Americans and law enforcement agencies was issued Thursday night by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the National Counterterrorism Center, CBS News...
Nasa delays next flight of Boeing’s alternative to SpaceX Dragon The Edge MalaysiaView Full Coverage on Google News
Backyard Astronomer: The best, and worst, times to look at the moon KamloopsBCNowPondering a Moon Mystery Bethpage Newsgram
The future of space exploration: Why astronaut health must come first Gulf NewsHow studying what space travel does to astronauts’ health is leading to innovations on Earth Toronto Star
Researchers have completed the first comprehensive exploration of itaconate, a natural compound involved in metabolism, in plants. The researchers found that itaconate helps plants grow, a finding that offers new possibilities for maximizing crop growth to support growing global populations.
The WCS New York Aquarium's partners and volunteers picked up more than 200 pounds of litter today along the Coney Island beach in less than two hours in recognition of World Oceans Day, which is Sunday, June 8.
Nearly 1,400 people were laid off from the Department of Education as the Trump administration works to dismantle it.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump's nasty feud has had some unintended consequences for the meme coin that inspired the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As CNBC reports, Dogecoin fell 10 percent on Thursday, the day that the Musk and Trump spat spilled over onto social media, and was down 22 percent week-over-week at its lowest point last night, when it was worth less than 17 cents. Given that it's a meme coin, Doge has never been worth all that much to begin with. At its absolute peak in 2021, the coin traded just under 75 cents thanks to Musk's endorsement [...]
New study reveals that noise can strengthen quantum entanglement The Brighter Side of News
Need to quickly interview an expert on the recent research findings from ASN on how
Stranger Than Heaven is Ryu Ga Gotoku's Project Century revealed, a noir-style action-adventure game set in 1940's Japan.
Astronomers are stunned after the quiet development of the largest telescope ever built in China. Farmingdale ObserverDecoding China's new 'giant eye' — telescope JUST China DailyChina’s first large-scale general-purpose spectroscopic telescope JUST starts infrastructure construction Global Times
Billionaire Elon Musk and president Donald Trump are seething on their respective social media platforms following a major escalation of resentment that's been simmering for months. The gloves came off this week, as the two enormous egos started taking swings at each other. Trump claimed that Musk's "governmental subsidies and contracts" would be terminated, throwing gasoline on the fire. In return, Musk vowed to cut off the United States' access to space by decommissioning SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft — only to change his mind hours later. And it could take some time for the two to bury the hatchet, considering the [...]
The bioarchaeological investigation of the Bronze Age cemetery of Tiszafüred-Majoroshalom has shed new light on an important period in Central European history.
"It Was a Crazy Idea": James Webb Space Telescope Confirms Dramatic Phenomenon On Pluto The DebriefA 'Crazy Idea' About Pluto Was Just Confirmed in a Scientific First ScienceAlert‘Crazy idea' about cooling effects of Pluto's haze confirmed by new James Webb Telescope data UC Santa Cruz - NewsNew Webb Data Confirms ‘Crazy Idea’ About Cooling Effects of Pluto’s Haze The Daily Galaxy
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon is urging the president to nationalize Elon Musk's SpaceX and deport the billionaire. Bannon, a far-right white nationalist commentator who served as Trump's chief strategist during his first term, said that Trump should sign an executive order, invoking a Korean War-era national security mobilization law called the Defense Production Act to assume control over Musk's space firm, as well as its Starlink satellite constellation, the Wall Street Journal reports. "The US government should seize it," Bannon said on his show, "War Room Live." The news comes after Musk escalated his highly public flame war with [...]
The LHCb experiment has taken a leap in precision physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In a new paper submitted to Physical Review Letters and currently available on the arXiv preprint server, the LHCb collaboration reports the first dedicated measurement of the Z boson mass at the LHC, using data from high-energy collisions between protons recorded in 2016 during the collider's second run.
First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry quantamagazine.org
Do you have trouble remembering names or where you put your keys? Neurologist Charan Ranganath, author of Why We Remember, talks about the science of memory. Originally broadcast Feb. 24, 2024.
A 21-year-old Navy sailor vanished from her Virginia naval station late last month, with a "critically missing adult" alert for her issued by Virginia State Police earlier this week. NBC News reports that Angelina Petra Resendiz, originally from Texas, was last seen in her barracks at Naval Station Norfolk's Miller...
An exoplanet called K2-18b is highlighting the complexities of finding life beyond Earth CNNGuest post: does atmospheric chemistry suggest there’s life on another planet? Why Evolution Is TrueIs the bar higher for scientific claims of alien life? The Conversation
Elon Musk is dialing back his threat to decommission a capsule used to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for NASA. The threat came as President Donald Trump and Musk argued on social media on Thursday. Trump...
Five simple phone setting tweaks that make your device work harder for you, from automatic text message deletion to scheduled focus modes.
Africa is seeking a greater role in the global space economy following the official inauguration of the African Space Agency (AfSA) April 20. The ceremony marked the culmination of a [...]The post Africa’s new space agency presents a unified space front appeared first on SpaceNews.
Astronomers have found a rare form of methanol, a type of alcohol, in a planet-forming disk, providing a critical step in understanding how life beyond Earth may form. This result reveals vital details about the chemical composition of the ice in disks that form planets, and what organic molecules are available for comets to deliver to planets, including in our Solar System.
Grapevines, widely valued for their fruit and wine, are especially vulnerable to cold temperatures. A new study has uncovered a key genetic factor that actually weakens the plant's natural defense against freezing stress. The gene, VviPUB19, was found to reduce cold tolerance by promoting the degradation of proteins that usually protect the plant under low temperatures. Tests in both grape and Arabidopsis confirmed that plants with higher levels of VviPUB19 were more cold-sensitive, while those without it were more resilient. These findings highlight a previously unknown negative regulator of cold stress pathways in plants.
Resilience, the second mission by Japanese company ispace, likely crashed attempting a landing on the moon June 5.The post Second ispace lunar lander presumed lost appeared first on SpaceNews.
Police in San Antonio, Texas, were quick to dismiss the idea that actor Jonathan Joss' murder was a hate crime , but they're now walking back their initial dismissal. Joss' husband claims the neighbor who allegedly killed Joss had threatened the couple and made homophobic remarks toward them multiple times, and...
Vulnerable communities in the Southeastern United States must look to the future, not the past, to prepare for climate disasters, according to researchers at Tufts University.In a recent paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the researchers document substantially higher risk of extreme temperatures and flooding in the Southeast U.S.
Around midday, Earth's ionosphere sometimes experiences sharp, short-lived dips in its electron density--an unusual phenomenon known as a noontime bite-out. A new study takes a global view of these midday disruptions, using finely detailed ionospheric maps to compare their behavior in years of high and low solar activity. The research reveals that noontime bite-outs are more widespread and frequent during solar minimum, especially in winter and at higher latitudes. With detailed tracking of timing, intensity, and duration, the study provides a clearer picture of this elusive phenomenon and offers fresh insights into the daily rhythms of space weather.
Billy Joel: And So It Goes premiered at New York City's Tribeca Festival Wednesday, and in the documentary, Joel reveals that decades ago, he attempted suicide—twice. When he was in his 20s and in a band, Attila, with his best friend Jon Small, Joel moved in with Small and...
Mankind has never been closer to setting foot on Mars. NASA is completing construction of its new Mars rover, in readiness for launching next summer, while SpaceX is firing prototypes of its Mars rocket engines, getting ready for short test flights in late 2020. David Pogue reports on the prognosis for manned exploration of the Red Planet, and how human endurance is being tested in a habitat constructed on the slopes of a Hawaiian volcano.
NASA's Mars 2020 mission, which launches for the Red Planet next summer, will feature not just a rover, but also a tiny helicopter that will detach and hover above the Martian surface. David Pogue talked with Mimi Aung, project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, in this preview of Pogue's report for "Sunday Morning" June 23.
On June 23, 1894 Alfred C. Kinsey, the biologist and professor who founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, and the author of the groundbreaking books "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female," was born. Jane Pauley reports.
Jeffrey Kluger, editor-at-large at Time magazine, recounts the human landmark of landing men on the lunar surface. Kluger talks with Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins and astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and, in archive footage, hears from mission commander Neil Armstrong about the achievement of the first Moon landing, and of the "magnificent desolation" they found there.
In Cobscook Bay, Maine, the Pittston Company's plans to build an oil refinery, welcomed by the tiny, struggling town, were met with resistance by environmentalists. The battle over the potential damage to the nesting area of the bald eagle (which in the 1970s was still an endangered species) led the Environmental Protection Agency to deny a permit. Correspondent Lem Tucker talked with Pittston vice president Arnold Kaulakis, Eastport city manager Everett Baxter, and environmental advocate Robert Gardiner, in a story first broadcast on "Sunday Morning" January 28, 1979. (Note: in 1983, after a decade-long effort, Pittston withdrew its plans to build the refinery citing escalating costs and global market conditions.)
Some facts about Earth's closest celestial neighbor from Jane Pauley.
As the founder, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX, a private company that makes rockets and spacecraft, Elon Musk envisions a time when his reusable rockets will bring people to the moon and Mars. He's focused on humans becoming a "multi-planet species," and on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, he speaks with Jeffrey Kluger (editor-at-large at Time magazine, and the co-author of "Apollo 13") about his vision for the future.
The American Psychological Foundation (APF), a grantmaking organization that supports psychologists and service organizations, is announcing Kiara Alvarez, PhD, Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health, Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as the inaugural recipient of the APF Direct Action Visionary Grant.
A private lunar lander from Japan crashed while attempting a touchdown Friday , the latest casualty in the commercial rush to the moon, the AP reports. The Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander. Flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but...
To Shakespeare's Hamlet, we humans are "the paragon of animals." But recent advances in genetics are suggesting that humans are far from being evolution's greatest achievement.
NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps retired May 30, after nearly 16 years of service with the agency. Epps most recently served as a mission specialist during NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission, spending 235 days in space, including 232 days aboard the International Space Station, working on hundreds of scientific experiments during Expedition 71/72. “I have had the [...]
TOI-2285 b is a sub-Neptune-sized planet orbiting a nearby M dwarf, discovered through the TESS photometric survey and ground-based follow-up observations. The planet was initially reported to have an orbital period of 27.27 d, making it one of the lowest temperature sub-Neptunes transiting a bright M dwarf. However, additional TESS data reveal that its true [...]The post Hidden Transits: TOI-2285 b is a Warmer sub-Neptune Likely with a Super-Earth Companion appeared first on Astrobiology.
Researchers discovered that the absence of one critical gene made the plague less virulent, and may have allowed two major pandemics to last longer.
From its vantage point outside Earth's atmosphere, more than 36,000 km above Earth's surface, the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission will detect major air pollutants over Europe in unprecedented detail. It will observe how they vary on an hourly basis—a real breakthrough for air quality forecasting.
A breath of fresh data: Sentinel-4 innovates for clean air Phys.org
Ispace of Japan’s Resilience Lander Heads to the Moon: How and When to Watch The New York TimesA private company wants to build a city on the moon. But it has to land a probe first ABC NewsSpacecraft set for a high-stakes lunar landing attempt this week took months to reach the moon. Here’s why CNNPrivate Japanese lunar lander heads toward a touchdown in the moon’s far north AP NewsPrivate lunar lander closing in on unexplored top of the moon Yahoo
A widely debated topic in biology and fisheries sciences is the role of oxygen in the growth of fish and other water-breathing animals. According to new research, developmental changes in individual fish and experimental errors are the causes of inconsistencies that have erroneously been linked to the Gill Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT), a theory that was developed to explain the influence of oxygen uptake on fish growth.
Elon Musk's days as the "first buddy" may be permanently over. After criticizing Musk during an Oval Office meeting on Thursday, Trump let loose on Truth Social, saying he had asked the billionaire to leave his administration and threatening his government contracts. "Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him...
Scientists discover universal rule that governs all life on Earth The Brighter Side of NewsScientists discover one simple rule that explains all life on Earth Earth.comLife from oceans to savannas explained with one single rule Phys.orgA general rule on the organization of biodiversity in Earth’s biogeographical regions Nature
A research team from Skoltech, AIRI, Tomsk Polytechnic University, and Sber has proposed and tested an approach to predicting the modification of material properties. Artificial intelligence models that were pre-trained on a small amount of data enabled a significant increase in the calculation of the formation energies in possible configurations of higher tungsten boride doped with other metals.
The Blue Danube Waltz sent into the stars European Space AgencyVoyager 1 ‘intercepts’ a song in the space — It came from 25 billion km away ECOticias.com El Periódico VerdeESA transmits the Blue Danube Waltz into deep space European Space AgencyOdd homage to '2001: A Space Odyssey' sees 'Blue Danube' waltz beamed at Voyager 1 theregister.comWorld's Most Famous Waltz to Be Beamed into Space on Composer 200th Birthday, and EU Space Agency's 50th Good News Network
The lead suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is currently serving time for another crime, and will be released from prison later this year—after which point, he says in a new interview, he plans to vanish himself. Meaning, as the Telegraph puts it, police are in a "race...
President Trump has issued a sweeping order barring most international students from entering the United States to attend Harvard, intensifying a months-long standoff between the White House and the renowned university. The move threatens the status of thousands of foreign students and marks another escalation in the administration's efforts to...
For most Chinese, the 36th anniversary of a bloody crackdown that ended pro-democracy protests in China passed like any other weekday. And that's just how the ruling Communist Party wants it. Security was tight Wednesday around Beijing's Tiananmen Square, where weeks of student-led protests shook the party in 1989, the...
President Trump has ordered an official inquiry into whether former President Biden's administration used an autopen—a machine that replicates signatures—to sign important presidential documents, such as pardons and judicial appointments. In a memo sent Wednesday night, Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House counsel to investigate...
Trees may be able to help us predict volcanic eruptions The Weather NetworkThe closer a volcano is to erupting, the greener the trees around it look from space Live ScienceTrees May Be Able to Warn Us When a Volcano Is About to Erupt ScienceAlert
A new study from Toho University reveals that female earwigs exhibit a similar pattern of exaggerated forceps growth as males, suggesting that both sexes may have evolved these traits through sexual selection.
Jared Isaacman made clear he believes his nomination to be administrator of NASA was pulled by the White House because of his ties to Elon Musk.The post Isaacman: people with ‘axes to grind’ about Musk caused withdrawn NASA nomination appeared first on SpaceNews.
Our galaxy can breathe easy: Milky Way may not collide with Andromeda, says new research FirstpostNo certainty of a Milky Way–Andromeda collision NatureWill the Milky Way crash into the Andromeda galaxy? Maybe not. National GeographicClose encounters of the galactic kind: Simulations suggest Milky Way and Andromeda may not collide after all Phys.orgApocalypse When? Hubble Casts Doubt on Certainty of Galactic Collision NASA Science (.gov)
The proposed Carbon Investigation (Carbon-I) Imaging Spectrometer is designed to measure variations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. The instrument will survey the Earth from its own spacecraft at an altitude of approximately 610 km. It will use a coarse ground sampling distance (GSD) of The post The Optical Design of the Carbon Investigation(Carbon-I) Imaging Spectrometer appeared first on Astrobiology.
Exoplanetary systems that contain multiple planets on short-period orbits appear to be prevalent in the current observed exoplanetary population, yet the processes that give rise to such configurations remain poorly understood. A common prior assumption is that planetary accretion commences after the infall of gas and solids to the circumstellar disk ended. However, observational evidence [...]The post Origin Of Compact Exoplanetary Systems During Disk Infall appeared first on Astrobiology.
A La Trobe University study has found the invasive South African flower Gazania is more resilient than previously understood, with its ability to adapt to different environments making it one of the biggest weed threats to Australian native grasslands and grain production.
Massive Asteroid Bigger Than the Empire State Building is Racing Toward Earth The Daily GalaxyAsteroid Larger Than Golden Gate Bridge Approaches Earth In Rare Event ForbesAsteroid bigger than the Empire State Building to fly by Earth this week: What if it strikes? The Economic TimesClose approach of asteroid (424482) 2008 DG5 European Space AgencyNASA tracks 1,400-foot asteroid in close Earth flyby tomorrow NewsBytes
Molecular oxygen (O2) will be an important molecule in the search for biosignatures in terrestrial planetary atmospheres in the coming decades. In particular, O2 combined with a reducing gas is thought to be strong evidence for disequilibrium caused by surface life. However, there are circumstances where it would be very difficult or impossible to detect [...]The post Is Ozone a Reliable Proxy for Molecular Oxygen? II. The impact of N2O on the O2-O3 relationship for Earth-like atmospheres appeared first on Astrobiology.
Humble limpets clinging to rocky shores around Aotearoa are surprisingly savvy when it comes to climate change adaptation, a new University of Canterbury study shows. Dr. Spencer Virgin, a postdoctoral fellow at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC), has worked on a thesis project he has dubbed "hot limpets," exploring how these common shellfish cope with a warming climate.
New fossil shows that precise wasp mimicry in hoverflies evolved far earlier than previously thought—and wasn't shaped by modern birds.
A group of astronomers from across the globe, including a team from the University of Washington and led by Queen's University Belfast, have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects will be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later in 2025.
You may have seen it in the news recently: a baby in Pennsylvania with a rare genetic disorder was healed with a personalized treatment that repaired his specific genetic mutation. The treatment was created using a form of gene editing called base editing—a method created by Alexis Komor when she was a postdoctoral scholar in molecular biologist David Liu's group at Harvard University.
A team at EPFL and the University of Arizona has discovered that making molecules bigger and more flexible can actually extend the life of quantum charge flow, a finding that could help shape the future of quantum technologies and chemical control. Their study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A new study about tadpoles that turn into cannibals may sound like fodder for nature trivia, but it carries a much deeper message about evolution—and even about ourselves.