Tag: biology

  • What Biology and Apes Can Reveal About Human Social Organization

    What Biology and Apes Can Reveal About Human Social Organization

    Viewing human behavior from a strictly biological perspective opens up transformative possibilities for human-centered technologies and intuitive environments that can nurture human relationships, fostering belonging and connection, rather than defaulting to rejection and division.

    A major obstacle to this understanding is the deep-seated boundary humans draw between themselves and the rest of the animal kingdom. While comparative studies often use one species (such as chimpanzees, dogs, bears, ants, bees, and so forth), such initiatives can bore and lose stamina for the simple reason that humans have little in common with any animal species in isolation. On the other hand, by analyzing humans from the perspective of the family (biologically speaking) they belong to – the ape family – a lot of great insights can arise.

    Within apes, the ability to deftly navigate the social environment has observable consequences for the reproductive success and survival of individuals within the ape group, which usually has a proportion between males and females of 1:1 (while reproduction is a choice rather than a necessity in modern human societies, the underlying biological hardware remains entirely geared toward it).

    From a developmental perspective, all apes have a late reproductive maturation. They have just one pair of mammary glands, which means low fecundity (offspring usually with one or two individuals). Female apes have long gestations, giving birth to large neonates, followed by a long lactational period.

    All ape infants have slow postnatal growth, leading to extensive investment in each individual, with childbearing usually shared by different group members.

    Considering a spectrum between precocial (animals that are fully developed after birth, need little parental care for survival) and altricial (animals that are underdeveloped after birth, need constant parental care for survival), apes are more on the altricial part of the spectrum when compared to other mammals.

    During their juvenile period, little apes often learn skills from other apes through playing, where they gain experience in feeding, avoiding predators, and, most importantly, navigating the social structures of the ape group. 

    Motoric features of fixed action patterns like aggression display, alimentation, and sexual interest are hardwired into the apes’ bodies. Still, the appropriate display of those traits is learned from the ape group, with ape biology being extremely flexible to accommodate, first and foremost, belonging. 

    Moving to the realm of behavior associated with biology, things start to get even more interesting.

    All apes have their reproductive traits fully developed when they reach adulthood (obviously not considering diseases). This means that apes are not eusocial (in eusocial animals, only a few members of the group are biologically able to reproduce, with all its other members cooperating for the reproduction and care of the offspring, like ants, bees, and wasps, some shrimp, and some rodents). Consequently, all rank systems within ape groups are socially constructed. 

    All apes present flexible and complex social organizations, often overlapping social models, with all individuals being relevant to the ape group even when they are no longer in their reproductive years. 

    Apes can organize themselves into 

    • hierarchies – a group that performs daily and seasonal activities together whose components agree on a ranking system that formalizes unequal access to limited resources
    • fission-fusion societies – the size and composition of the group changes according to the tasks the members have to perform daily and seasonally
    • Solitary and social – solitary group members interact occasionally, ranging through an extensive territory. 

    When in the wild, all animals behave as part of their ecosystem, contributing to their reproduction and survival as a whole. In the case of apes, they are agroforestry farmers (through their dietary habits, they promote the spread of various plants) and occasional predators.

    All apes present some degree of tool use to assist them on daily tasks that they learned from observing other animals (several studies confirm that learning from observing other animal species is hardwired in animal behavior).

    Some of the tools apes use have an important role in foraging for food and shelter, while others are simply rituals performed for social belonging that are often passed through generations without making any other practical sense (like orangutans that bathe with soap). 

    Grounding the human story in shared biological reality can offer a refreshing perspective for human societies in general. Cultivating this kind of scientific curiosity makes it far easier to bridge gaps, foster empathy, and design a more integrated world.

    As a species, especially over the last few years, human societies worldwide are very divided and polarized. Maybe biology can give a clue as to how we can all – again- feel that we belong.

    All references for this article can be found here.

  • About Fossils and Species

    About Fossils and Species

    A fossil is any preserved remains, impressions, or traces of any once-living organism(s) imprinted in rocks that enable its identification as being from a (past) geological age.

    Since organisms started to inhabit the Earth’s surface, body decomposition is the norm after their death, affecting the great majority of organisms. For fossilization to happen, it means that decomposition cannot happen, which is, at Earth’s surface, extremely rare. 

    Still, some body parts of organisms that are calcium-rich (like teeth, shells, bones, and so forth) can stand for thousands (sometimes millions) of years without being decomposed, also becoming fossils. 

    Despite a combination of a recently developed better understanding of plate tectonics theory and technological advances in radiometric dating (the rates at which various radioactive elements decay show how long ago they were incorporated into the rock), it is still challenging for paleontology to work out fossil ages (especially isolated bones and teeth) because the beds that preserve the fossils are typically lacking the radioactive elements (common only in rocks with a volcanic origin) necessary for accurate dating. 

    On the other hand, the fossilization of a whole organism (which requires that decomposition does not happen) is often associated with ultra-rare events triggered by toxic (and anoxic) gas eruptions from the mantle (usually happening in deep lakes) spanning from 1.000.000.000 to 37 years ago. Those anoxic events generate fossil sites with exceptional preservation (called lägerstatten – German for storage places) that are fairly distributed throughout the Earth’s surface. 

    Because of all those difficulties in fossilization itself, today, it is generally accepted by paleontology that the fossil record is vastly incomplete (only less than 5% of the number of known living species have been discovered through fossils, suggesting that the number of species known through fossils must be far less than 1% of all species that ever lived) and that its interpretation is filled (and fuelled) with cultural biases. 

    Those technological difficulties in dating fossil findings, together with the rarity of its appearance, are compounded by the way paleontologists often call a single sample like a bone or tooth a new “species,” which in this case means more something like a “specimen” and therefore should not be taken as the definition of species as we see in biology  

    The largest group of organisms whose males and females can mate and reproduce, generating fertile offspring. 

    It is important to highlight that a fossil find is nothing more than the remains of a single organism. 

    A single organism can represent a species (biology) to the extent that this representation is not used to infer over whole populations (within organisms belonging to the same species, it is common to find different diets, social behaviors, morphology, and so forth). 

    Specifically, in the case of primates (humans included), the fossil record is mainly composed of scattered remains like teeth and bone fragments, with lägerstatten with primates being extremely rare (to illustrate, this is a world map of primate fossil finds (humans included), with the ages of the fossils and the places they were found).

    The nature of the primate fossil record poses a challenge for accurate dating, while making the analysis of the specimens’ age, gender, and morphology difficult. Also, due to the lack of technological development, even primate fossil findings that were done many years ago could have their analyses done just recently. 

    When contextualizing the findings of primate fossil records, instead of using contemporary notions of geography without taking into consideration the actual environmental conditions found at Earth’s surface (something fundamental, such as the position of the continents, for example), attaching human fossil finds to contemporary cultures as a totem could become a huge historical and scientific mistake. 

    Within the primates, at least all humans inhabiting Earth’s surface today are part of the same species (biologically speaking); therefore, a fossil specimen, no matter how old or significant, should not be conflated with a biological species, nor should it be used to anchor cultural identity. 

    The fossil record is a small sample humans have throughout the time of a vast, chaotic, complex, and still waiting-to-be-understood system found in the biosphere.

    All references for this article that are not linked to the content can be found here.

  • Adaptation Is Not Random

    Adaptation Is Not Random

    Since the biosphere started to become relevant on Earth’s surface, around 575.000.000 years ago, diverse microorganisms, macroorganisms, plants, and animals have all been shaped by the environmental conditions at Earth’s surface in a given space and time through their metabolism.

    Metabolism, in turn, is responsible for fabricating the genes that shape them throughout the years, with distinct species developing similar features throughout the same period of time. The intertwined relationship between a given environment and its inhabitant organisms is what the scattered fossil record humans have so far portrays.

    To illustrate, somewhere between 200,000,000 and 145,000,000 years ago, according to the fossil record, wings (as they are today) appeared together in both birds and insects.

    The same pattern appeared again 55.000.000 years ago. Spanning some 200.000 years, planet Earth’s surface temperatures hit a threshold of warm climate, with surface temperatures ranging from 5 to 8 degrees Celsius hotter than the long-term average inferred from geological records.

    Curiously, not all of the globe experienced the same warm temperatures. Data show that the poles managed to get warmer while the tropics maintained their temperature (a combination of global climate dynamics associated with Earth’s mantle activity can explain this phenomenon), with tropical forests occurring on all landmasses throughout Earth’s surface.

    In response to such a scenario, some terrestrial mammals adapted to life in trees started to appear in fossil records. These mammals, called primates, have a set of distinct characteristics to make use of the trees, such as mobile shoulder girdles (that allow them to climb trees), opposable thumbs (to hold branches better), and the presence of nails (to maintain a tight grip and perform fine motor movements).

    Continuing along the same line of thinking, by 50.000.000 years ago, there was a considerable rise in sea levels with increasing availability of marine organic matter and a decrease in terrestrial organic matter. Under such environmental pressures, terrestrial mammals transitioned to aquatic life, with whales and dolphins appearing in the fossil record around this time. In 2026, several studies confirmed these scenarios, including one from June 2026, which described a whale fossil whose teeth show an intermediate stage between the grinding teeth of land-dwelling ancestors and the sharper, slicing teeth of early aquatic predators.

    Last but not least, by 37.000.000 years ago, large lakes were present on Earth’s surface, making the largest terrestrial mammal—elephants—transition into a semi-aquatic lifestyle, explaining their furless skin, which humans can witness today.

    In this way, according to empirical evidence, organisms simply respond and adapt to their environmental conditions through their metabolism, primarily focused on their own reproduction and survival. 

    In the case that the organisms’ environmental conditions change to the point that it affects their metabolism, their metabolisms will change, and consequently, their genetic composition also changes, which may or may not give rise to a new species over the years. 

    Demystifying the relationship between environment and metabolism is not just an academic exercise. It is the foundation for understanding how the environments are shaping life today.

    The same forces that gave primates their opposable thumbs, whales their aquatic bodies, and elephants their furless skin are still at work. Humans are not exempt.

    The question is not whether life is being shaped. The question is whether humans will pay attention to what is being built.

    All references for this article that are not linked to the content can be found here.

  • What Pangea Actually Meant for Life

    What Pangea Actually Meant for Life

    Due to the proportions of planet Earth, all features at its surface are first and foremost determined by the gravitational interactions with other astronomical bodies (like the Sun and the Moon).

    In the case of the continents, such interactions trigger the mantle materials to rise up and sink down, giving them their arrangement and size. 

    The current mass and configuration of the continents started to take their present form around 700.000.000 years ago when the continents were spread from the equator to the south pole, to subsequently start to gather closer to the south pole.

    Still, due to mantle interactions, by 350.000.000 years ago, the continents gathered from the south to the north pole, shaping a massive, monumental, and concentrated landmass – Pangea. 

    At Pangea, Earth’s surface consisted of one portion of dry solid continental crust from the south pole to the north pole, entirely surrounded by one massive ocean. 

    Pangea had a perpetually wet and warm zone around the equator (delta environments), contrasting with drier zones closer to the poles. There was no ice at the poles during this time on Earth’s surface, with warm temperatures spreading throughout the whole continental land. 

    The process of connecting the landmasses (rising and sinking of mantle materials coming together with a lot of outgassing) changed the levels of oxygen dramatically in the Earth’s surface atmosphere, which peaked around 300.000.000 years ago, with oxygen being 35% of the atmospheric composition (to contextualize, it is 22% today) and dramatically declining to 15% within only 10.000.000 years. 

    The atmospheric changes and the increasingly overall arid inland climates, together with the lack of oceanic barriers at Pangea, allowed organisms to get wildly geographically distributed in all continental landmasses, directly causing the rise of new kinds of multicellular organisms that had to ensure reproduction and survival far away from water. 

    Due to such environmental pressure, some plants responded by having a protective coat around their embryos – the first seed plants – while some animals responded by developing several features: the ability to procreate without water bodies, three membranes around their embryos, better homeostasis, a water-impermeable skin, and a robust air-breathing respiratory system (to power terrestrial locomotion) – the first amniotes. 

    At this point, it is important to highlight that regarding the embryo development feature in amniotes,  already at around 300.000.000 years ago, way more biological responsibilities were being designated to the female organisms (the ones who fabricate the egg cells) regarding reproduction, with the development inside their bodies of at least the three layers of membranes around their embryo.

    This means that female burden is not given; it was (and is) physically (environmentally) constructed. Contrary to the popular belief that evolutionary features are primarily magical or random, a closer examination reveals that metabolism is way more attached and dependent on environmental conditions to take place, and genes are the byproducts of metabolism (see my previous article). Therefore, responding to planetary constraints is what multicellular life has been doing on the planet Earth’s surface since it started (according to what we know so far) around 575.000.000 years ago. 

    Still related to Mantle activity, by 250.000.000 years ago, Pangea started to crack, with some portions of the ocean rising between the continental landmasses. The intense volcanic activities caused elevated temperatures, keeping the whole surface ice-free. Sea levels experienced intense fluctuations with surges up to 75 meters on the eustatic sea level (the distance from the center of the Earth to the sea surface), creating numerous shallow inland seas. Such environmental changes resulted in a massive extinction that affected 81% of marine and 70% of terrestrial species.

    The saga of planetary changes continues, always causing direct consequences in multicellular life (that are still going on today); that is why it is so important to understand that Pangea is not a curiosity. It is a lesson.  

    It’s about time to start deeply exploring the relationship between environment and multicellular life. 

    Life on Earth’s surface is not a force that adapts to the environments surrounding it. 

    Life on Earth’s surface is shaped by the planet’s physical conditions.

    Those statements automatically lead us to a very liberating and comforting realization – we are way more connected to the place and time we currently inhabit, instead of the ones we imagine we came from.

    All references for this article can be found in my publication, Beliefs of a Female Architect. If you enjoy science writing completely grounded in empirical evidence, check it out. It might be something for you.

  • What Life Actually Is

    What Life Actually Is

    Starting with the obvious, everything that exists on planet Earth is made out of the elements portrayed in the periodic table. 

    An atom of an element consists of an extremely dense nucleus made of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons, with negatively charged clouds – the electrons – orbiting the nucleus. The number of neutrons (isotopes) and the number of electrons (ions) can vary within the same element, therefore, what defines an element is the number of protons in its core (1 proton hydrogen, 2 protons helium, and so forth).

    Since the stars in the universe were ignited not earlier than 13.650.000.000 years ago, a reaction that occurs at their core called nuclear fusion has been “burning” hydrogen and helium, generating enormous amounts of energy and producing – as byproducts – atoms of different elements of the periodic table – up to iron (26) at the star core, up to Lead(82) at the star shell layers, and up to plutonium(94) in phenomena that can quickly generate a massive influx of neutrons (like a supernova). 

    Due to its position in the solar system, Planet Earth is made out of atoms from hydrogen(1) to plutonium(94), whose quantities and distribution within planetary layers were determined by its genesis processes. 

    At the physical conditions found on planet Earth, almost all atoms tend to bond with other atoms, and they do so through the lasting attraction between their electrons – originating molecules. 

    The molecules appear in all shapes, designs, and sizes – they can contain just two atoms of the same element (O2 oxygen gas, H2 hydrogen gas) as well as millions of atoms of different elements (RNA, DNA molecules). 

    Within all the elements that Earth is (and was) made of, one stands out as an excellent building block of molecules – carbon. Because of its intrinsic properties (number and configuration of its electrons), carbon atoms can attach with many different elements through a wide variety of bonds and shapes, enabling enormous molecules to take place (by definition, every molecule with a carbon bond is an organic molecule – for historical reasons some carbon compounds are considered inorganic). 

    Under some very specific circumstances atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen (elements that were and still are abundant on Earth) can fuse together (with smaller quantities of elements like phosphorus, sulfur, and iron) generating complex organic molecules.

    According to their composition, shape, and design, these complex organic molecules are classified as amino acids (building blocks of proteins and enzymes), lipids (building blocks of membranes), nucleotides (building blocks of genes – RNA and DNA molecules), and carbohydrates (also building blocks of genes and enzymes). 

    In order to forge these complex organic molecules, a special reaction must occur. 

    In a parallel, the same way that nuclear fusion in the stars needs certain environmental conditions to generate the energy loop that fabricates (as byproducts) the elements of the periodic table, the special reaction also needs certain (microscopic) environmental conditions to generate a (tiny) energy bolt loop that fabricates (as byproducts) the complex organic molecules. 

    This (tiny) energy loop requires a (microscopic) container with its internal walls electromagnetically charged (electrons of their atoms avid to bond), together with some fluid inside that provides atoms (the fuel) to react with the internal wall. Under these environmental conditions, a microscopic (atomic level) bolt of lightning is generated along the internal wall that reignites itself through a chain of chemical reactions that, in turn, fabricates (as byproducts) complex organic molecules (such as RNA, DNA). 

    This special reaction, this tiny lightning bolt loop fabricating complex organic molecules, is called metabolism. 

    This is an excerpt from my publication Beliefs of a Female Architect. If you enjoy science writing completely grounded in empirical evidence, it might be something for you.

    All sources that shaped this article are available at the publication Beliefs of a Female Architect.