The eye is an amazing organ. It enables an organism to translate light into electro-chemical impulses that the brain can assemble into "images" of the world around it. Many types of eyes are known in the living world, and a new study describes one of the most intriguing eye designs yet to be uncovered.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has spawned concerns regarding the long-term negative impact on the area's ecology, and especially on local fisheries. These worries are based on the assumption that the oil would persist and, like an infamous pesticide from the 1950s, carry deadly effects up the food chain for many years.

What do the oldest European artworks and the domestication of animals have in common? A Penn State University paleoanthropologist suggested that they are evidence of a unique connection with animals that profoundly shaped the evolutionary development of early man.

Do chimpanzees have their own culture? If so, some researchers would connect their behaviors to aspects of human culture, which they believe supports an evolutionary relationship. But current developments shed doubt on that idea.

Mosasaurs were marine reptiles with large jaws and big teeth. Their fossils have been found on every continent, including Antarctica. They grew longer than 40 feet, and although they had fearsome jaws that marked them as a formidable predator, scientists had until now assumed that they were only mediocre swimmers.