Robots evolve more quickly and efficiently after a virtual mass extinction modeled after real-life disasters such as the one that killed off the dinosaurs. At the start of the simulation, a biped ...

Beyond its implications for artificial intelligence, the research supports the idea that mass extinctions actually speed up evolution by unleashing new creativity in adaptations. Computer scientists ...

As Earth's temperature rises sharply, the threat of a global mass extinction has loomed. But U of A researchers say that fear ...

Woodpeckers have extraordinarily long tongues to locate and capture various hard-to-reach insects living inside the wood of trees.

Birds that dive underwater — such as penguins, loons and grebes — may be more likely to go extinct than their nondiving kin, a new study finds. Many water birds have evolved highly specialized bodies ...

The extinction of the largest dinosaurs to walk the Earth may have played a critical role in creating an environment that ...

"Cartilaginous fish, including present-day sharks and rays, have been on our planet for over 400 million years. They have survived several mass extinction events. However, currently, more than a third ...

The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) mass extinction event, marking the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods approximately 66 million years ago, stands as one of the most profound ...

ANN ARBOR—Shortly after an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, life for non-avian dinosaurs ended, but the evolutionary story for the early ancestors of birds began. The fossil record ...

This graph plots extinction rates of marine animal families over the last 600 million years. The shaded band indicates the normal range of extinction rates, known as "background extinction." The five ...

Life changes over time. Of course, it does. We know this thanks to a wealth of converging evidence in the form of millions of fossils, clear genetic clues, and observations made out in the field and ...