Congratulations to Mansi Srivasta awarded the Smith Family Foundation: Odyssey Award for her project, "Comparing Development and Regeneration to Uncover Mechanisms for Maintaining Regenerative Ability in Adult Animals.” 

The new Smith Family Foundation Odyssey Award was created in 2017 to fuel creativity and innovation in junior investigators in the basic sciences.  The Award supports the pursuit of...

For the past five years, Prof Javier Ortega-Hernández and Prof. Yu Liu, Yunnan University, China have collaborated to learn more about arthropod evolution by using micro-CT scanning to create 3D models of fossils and view details that would be impossible to see otherwise. Their work was recently covered by the Harvard Gazette...

Mallard ducks are capable of performing a wide range of behaviors including nearly vertical takeoffs from both land and water. The hindlimb plays a key role during takeoffs for both; however, the amount of force needed differs in fluid and solid environments. In a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology, recent graduate Kari Taylor-Burt (PhD '20) and Prof. Andrew Biewener hypothesize that hindlimb joint motion and muscle shortening are faster...

How do you do botany fieldwork for a course during COVID when classes are online? Prof. Charles Davis developed an online botany course, Plant Biodiversity in the Digital Age, taught at the University of Michigan. Instead of conducting research at the University's ...

OEB Prof. Scott Edwards stands on an Oregon beach and hoists his bike overhead in triumph. "The Harvard  Professor and curator of ornithology had just finished a solo, cross-country bike ride spanning 76 days, 15 states, 3,800 miles—and just three flat tires." Another great article from Audubon Society covering the successful end of Scott's...

Among the many winter survival strategies in the animal world, hibernation is one of the most common. With limited food and energy sources during winters - especially in areas close to or within polar regions - many animals hibernate to survive the cold, dark winters. Though much is known behaviorally on animal hibernation, it is difficult to study in fossils.

According to new research, this type of adaptation has a long history. In a paper published Aug. 27 in the journal Communications Biology...

The evolution of novel features - traits such as wings or eyes - helps organisms make the most use of their environment and promotes increased diversification among species. Understanding the underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms involved in the origin of these traits is of great interest to evolutionary biologists.

The flowering plant Aquilegia, a genus of 60-70 species found in temperate meadows, woodlands and mountain tops around the world, is known for a novel feature - the nectar spur, which is important for pollination, and for the ecology and...