By successively acquiring culture in the form of values, ideas, and actions throughout their lives, humans influence future learning and the capacity for cultural evolution. The number of learning opportunities a person is exposed to is of great importance to that individual’s cultural evolution during his/her lifetime, according to researchers in Sweden. With the aid of mathematical models, these scientists show that there are differences between cultural and biological evolution.

(Virginia Tech) As mathematics continues to become an increasingly important component in undergraduate biology programs, a more comprehensive understanding of the use of algebraic models is needed by the next generation of biologists to facilitate new advances in the life sciences, according to researchers at Sweet Briar College and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech.

(Virginia Tech) Soon to be published research explains a 60-year mystery behind a rare bat's nose that is unusually large for its species. Bourret's horseshoe bat uses its elongated nose to create a highly focused sonar beam.

Sex is considered as an evolutionary paradox, since its positive contribution to Darwinian fitness remains unverified for some species.

In a strategic game, the success of any player depends not just on his or her own actions, but on the behavior of every other player in the game. To be successful, players must not only pay attention to what other players do, but also how they are thinking. Understanding how the brain functions during this strategizing is at "the core of studies of adaptive social intelligence,"...