Featured series 
Tag: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
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Campus & Community
Study: Predatory dinosaurs had birdlike pulmonary system
What could the fierce dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex and a modern songbird such as the sparrow possibly have in common? Their pulmonary systems may have been more similar than scientists previously…
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Campus & Community
Scientists show how fish save energy by swimming in schools
Researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have provided new insights into the hydrodynamic benefits fish reap by swimming in schools. “The annual upstream voyage of fish…
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Science & Tech
Australian shale tells tale of layered seas
Harvard researchers have found important clues about the Earth’s environment 1.5 billion years ago. Their results present quite a different picture from present times, in which oceans have oxygen-rich waters…
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Science & Tech
Missy Holbrook investigates the world of plants
Every day an oak tree moves hundreds of gallons of water up from the soil and out, in evaporated form, through its leaves. “Mechanically, it’s a pretty substantial feat,” says…
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Science & Tech
Beetle mania
Grain weevils alone cost the global economy about $35 billion, or a third of the world’s grain crop, every year. Various other beetle species damage dozens of crops including bamboo,…
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Science & Tech
Daddy longlegs have a global reach
Huge numbers of arachnid and insect species remain unknown. Arachnologists like Gonzalo Giribet, toiling in relative obscurity, routinely identify new species – and their work is far from over. Giribet,…
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Health
Deadliest form of malaria is younger than previously believed
Malaria kills more people than any other communicable disease except for tuberculosis. It is the world’s most serious parasitic tropical disease, resulting in 1 million to 3 million deaths annually.…
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Health
New gene found in fruit flies could impact human medicine
In one type of fruit fly, Drosophilia melanogaster, but not in others, researchers found a gene that carries instructions for making a motor that gives this species’ sperm extra horsepower.…
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Health
Understanding how fish swim
The pattern is hard to see at first because the movement seems to happen in the blink of an eye.