Briefs · Frontier Science
There’s a hidden bias affecting what we know – and don’t know – about nature
Science has a crush, and the crush is costing us cures. Invertebrates make up 95% of animal species, yet more than half of 1.4 million ecology and evolution papers studied vertebrates. Fish rose from 35.8% of marine and freshwater biology articles in 2001 to 49.7% in 2025, squeezing out molluscs, crustaceans and corals. 868 animal behaviour researchers said emotion drives the choice: birds and mammals are loved, spiders are shunned. Yet the Gila monster’s saliva led to Ozempic, and jellyfish proteins won a Nobel Prize. The verdict is cute’s cruel cost: favouring the fluffy starves the science that saves us.
Read the original at The Conversation (Science and Technology)
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