Evolution

How Females Choose The 'Right' Sperm To Avoid Hybrid Fertilizations

Females select the 'right' sperm to fertilize their eggs when faced with the risk of being fertilized by wrong sperm from a different species and researchers recently set out to investigate salmon and trout, which fertilize externally in river w ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 16 2013 - 9:46am

It's Not Always The End Of The World: Mammals Prospered Due To Mass Extinction

The ancient closest relatives of mammals, the cynodont therapsids, not only survived the greatest mass extinction of all time 252 million years ago, they thrived in the aftermath. The first mammals arose in the Triassic period, more than 225 million years ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 28 2013 - 2:00pm

Lactose Tolerance And Multiple Genetic Adaptations- A Soft Selective Sweep

A genetic phenomenon that allows for the selection of multiple genetic mutations that all lead to a similar outcome- a 'soft selective sweep' such as the ability to digest milk- has been characterized for the first time in humans. This soft sele ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 29 2013 - 1:53pm

RNA World Hypothesis: Primordial Soup May Need A New Recipe

Before there was life on Earth, there was a primordial soup of molecules, and at some point a specialized molecules began replicating. This self-replication kick-started a biochemical process that would lead to the first organisms. How those molecules beg ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 13 2013 - 5:42pm

As Flowering Plants Radiated, Early Mammal Varieties Declined

The great angiosperm radiation of the mid-Cretaceous, the dramatic explosion of flowering plant species that occurred about 100 million years ago, is thought to have been good news for evolving mammals, providing them with new options for food and habitat ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2013 - 11:09am

Bees Are Closer Genetic Relatives To Ants Than They Are Wasps

Bees are more genetically related to ants than they are to social wasps such as yellow jackets and paper wasps, according to a new paper.  Ants, bees and stinging wasps all belong to the aculeate (stinging) Hymenoptera clade, the insect group in which soc ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 8 2013 - 10:02am

Megacheirans: Extinct Giant Clawed Creature Had A Scorpion Nervous System

A new study has revealed that the ancestors of chelicerates (spiders, scorpions, etc.) branched off from the family tree of other arthropods, such as including insects, crustaceans and millipedes, more than half a billion years ago. ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 16 2013 - 2:38pm

A Pig, A Fish And A Jellyfish Walk Into A Bar With A Nervous Disorder...

Pigs, jellyfish and zebrafish don't seem to have much in common with each other, much less humans, but the different species are all pieces of a puzzle which is helping to solve the riddles of diseases in humans- like hereditary forms of diseases aff ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 17 2013 - 10:18am

Convergent Evolution: Why Bats And Whales Act A Lot Alike

Though the largest Sperm whales weigh up to 50 tons and and the smallest bat barely reaches a gram, they share something in common. They both use echolocation, biological sonar, for hunting. Echolocation systems are one of nature's most successful sp ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2013 - 8:00am

Evolutionary Cascade Theory Humor: A Sauropod Walks Into A Bar, The Bartender Asks 'Why The Long Neck?'

A new collection featuring research on the complex evolutionary cascade theory that made the unique gigantism of sauropod dinosaurs possible has now been published in PLOS ONE. Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest terrestrial animals to roam the Earth, exc ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2013 - 2:00pm