Tag Archives: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Your best friend might share your DNA, new study finds The next time you tell your besties, “I feel like we’re related,” or “You’re family” science might back you up! A groundbreaking study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2018 finds that our friends are genetically more similar to us than strangers— even if they’re …

For decades, the native iguanas of Fiji and Tonga have presented an evolutionary mystery. Every other living iguana species dwells in the Americas, from the Southwestern United States to the Caribbean and parts of South America. So how could a handful of reptilian transplants have ended up on two islands in the South Pacific, over 4,970 miles away? “The question …

Avocados are true superfoods: dense, buttery scoops of vitamins, fat and fiber, all in a hand-size package. We worked for a long time to make them this way. According to a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, people in what we today call Honduras made avocados a part of their diets at least 10,000 …

Flower mites spend their lives slurping nectar and nibbling pollen in flowers throughout the tropics. To travel from one blossom to another, these tiny, eight-legged creatures hitch rides on the beaks of hummingbirds, taking shelter in the birds’ nostrils during flight. When a speedy hummingbird arrives at a flower to drink nectar, mites run toward its beak to get onboard …

A culture flourished along the central Peruvian coast from about A.D. 900 to 1500. Called the Chancay, they left behind a wealth of cultural remains, including intricate tattoos that are preserved to this day on the skin of mummified individuals. New details of these tattoos that were previously hidden to the naked eye, including finely traced lines, were described in …

As the world grapples with climate change, population growth and dwindling supplies of fresh water, more people are set to rely on treated wastewater to sustain their daily lives. But wastewater, even after treatment, contains high levels of harmful “forever chemicals” that are already contaminating the drinking water of millions of Americans, researchers said in a study published on Monday …