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Cunning snails drug fish with insulin then eat them Movie Camera

TODAY:  20:00 19 January 2015

Cone snails spray an incapacitating chemical cocktail to knock out fish. And understanding the structure of a fast-working insulin molecule in that cocktail may help inform drug development for diabetes

Rite reasons: Why your brain loves pointless rituals

FEATURE:  20:00 19 January 2015

Logic and reason sets our species apart, but we are also born with a mind for nonsensical rituals – and they may be even more crucial for our survival

See chicken develop on drugs through a cracked eggshell Movie Camera

PICTURE OF THE DAY:  17:00 19 January 2015

Peek inside two eggs containing moving, developing chicks to see how giving one a muscle stimulant can have a life-long effect on its body shape

Zoologger: Spider has sex, then chews off own genitals

TODAY:  14:36 16 January 2015

Self-castration after once-in-a-lifetime sex helps coin spiders protect their mate from the unwanted attentions of other males

Geese use the Himalayas like a massive rollercoaster

TODAY:  19:00 15 January 2015

They're well adapted high-flyers, but instead of staying straight and level at lofty altitudes, migrating geese save energy by flying up peaks and down valleys

If birds in a truck fly, does the truck get lighter? Movie Camera

TODAY:  18:32 15 January 2015

Yes, but it also gets heavier, say researchers who weighed flapping birds with super sensitive scales

Rome's military women have been hiding in plain sight

THIS WEEK:  21:00 14 January 2015

Women were banned from Roman military life – so how come six are sculpted on one of the most-studied triumphal monuments in the world?

Adapt first, mutate later: Is evolution out of order?

FEATURE:  20:00 14 January 2015

We used to think evolution had to start with random mutations, now walking fish and bipedal rats are turning our ideas on their head

Ancient sea scorpion shows off its land legs

PICTURE OF THE DAY:  17:04 14 January 2015

The intact fossil of a new scorpion species shows that the animals could have evolved for life on land earlier than thought

Poisoning Tibet's rabbit relatives may be a bad move

TODAY:  16:54 14 January 2015

The Chinese government is poisoning pikas for wrecking the ecosystem, but they could be essential to the survival of the Tibetan fox and for regulating rivers

Whaleworld: Looking for cetacean culture

REVIEW:  19:00 13 January 2015

Orca clan calls and dolphin "tail-walking" provide clues to cetacean culture, find Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell in The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins

Lizard penises evolve super-fast

THIS WEEK:  16:49 13 January 2015

They say size matters, but what of speed? In some lizards, penises have been evolving incredibly quickly – up to six times faster than other traits

OCEANS

Rights versus bites: The great shark culling debate

Sharks have killed seven people off Western Australia since 2010. Can culling stop them – and what will be the cost to marine wildlife?

THE HUMAN BRAIN

Consciousness on-off switch discovered deep in brain

Switching consciousness on and off <i>(Image: Kirk Weddle/Getty Images)</i>

Zapping an area deep in our brains turns off consciousness – suggesting this is where perceptions are bound together into a cohesive experience

VIDEO

Surreal X-ray movie reveals how a fly beats its wingsMovie Camera

Peering inside a living blowfly during flight reveals the intricate muscle movement involved

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ZOOLOGGER

Zoologger: Spider has sex, then chews off own genitals

TODAY:  14:36 16 January 2015

Self-castration after once-in-a-lifetime sex helps coin spiders protect their mate from the unwanted attentions of other males

Zoologger: The tasty crab that looks like an ugly frog

ZOOLOGGER:  12:30 07 January 2015

Is it a frog? Is it a crab? One look at a frog crab explains its name, but how these curious animals evolved has long been a mystery

HUMANS

Ancestry of first Americans revealed by a boy's genome

The genes of a boy who died 12,600 years ago show that all indigenous people in the Americas seem to be descended from the same group of ancestors

EVOLUTION
Whence we came <i>(Image: Pearl Bucknall/Plainpicture)</i>

Ancient water cache may be pristine primordial soup

Deep rocks have been cracked open and water isolated for billions of years released – the liquid may represent Darwin's "warm little pond" where life arose

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