For the first time, scientists have measured how quickly large-scale evolutionary changes in body size occur. Intriguingly, while it takes 24 million generations for a mouse-sized animal to evolve to the size of an elephant, shrinkage is a much more rapid process. The findings, which focus on increases and decreases in mammal size following the […]
According to a new study in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, men in rural areas have significantly larger penises than city-dwellers.Penis size bragging rights between country and city will likely ensue, but the original purpose of the study was not to measure size, but to establish a baseline set of data for […]
Researchers from all over the world have banded together to try and answer one of biology’s most intriguing questions. Why are males larger than females in some animal species (such as most mammals), yet females larger than males in others (most insects)? Study leader, Wolf Blanckenhorn, of the Zoological Museum at the University of Zurich, […]
A report in Public Library of Science (PLOS) Medicinesuggests that family size can greatly influence the development of stomach cancer linked to the bacteriumHelicobacter pylori. The new study, conducted by New York University Medical Center researchers Martin J. Blaserand and Guillermo Perez-Perez, found that younger siblings from large families appeared to be especially vulnerable to […]
Adam Bjork and Scott Pitnick of Syracuse University have been getting down and dirty with sexual selection again. Following on from theirbig bat testicle research, the two say that they have discovered a major conundrum in the area of evolutionary biology. In their article in Nature, Bjork and Pitnick discuss the paradox they discovered within […]
How much do females really care about their mate’spenis size? A new study has shown that for some fish species, females prefer males with larger sexual organs, and actually choose them for mating. But biologist Brian Langerhans, from Washington University in St. Louis, said that this does not exclude males with an average-sized sex organ, […]
