It was 34 years ago, in 1981, that the first patients of the HIV virus were identified. Today, there remain 36.9 million people worldwide living with HIV.

In the dark recesses of a tiny cave two hours northwest of Las Vegas, about 100 fish the size of your thumb live a very tough life.

Here’s a fish story for you: Five years ago, researchers at UNLV launched what they expected to be a simple, one-week study of the endangered Devil’s Hole pupfish. What they netted instead was a metabolic mystery that seems to defy the rules of biology.

Dr. Frank van Breukelen is an Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was invited to tell us about a new research project in this laboratory about some really cool mammals called tenrecs.

Once bathing in the waters of the southwestern United States, a fish, Cyprinodon macularius , found in the Death Valley basement, has surprisingly adapted after the drastic change in its aquatic environment. The adaptation of its metabolism to new conditions is an astonishing example of physiological plasticity.

Tiny pupfish have adapted their respiration to go without oxygen for long stretches.

And you thought you could hold your breath for a long time. Enter the desert pupfish, a tiny fish that has been playing evolutionary catch-up due to the extreme changes in its environment over the last 10,000 years.

The desert pupfish has evolved to go without oxygen for considerable periods of time to survive its harsh environment

The relict leopard frog’s journey into Southern Nevada’s landscape has seen its share of challenges.

A shrewlike creature in Madagascar that can hibernate for at least nine months of the year without waking may help reveal how mammals survived the cataclysm that ended the age of dinosaurs, researchers suggest.