Evolution

Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny- Except For This Strange-Looking Head

"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" biologists once said- meaning that an animal's "ontogeny", its embryonic development, replays its entire evolutionary history. Today our understanding a more nuanced and a better way to figure ou ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 15 2014 - 11:31am

Rapidly Evolving Lizards Show How Some Creatures Can Adapt To Beat Climate Change

Can the brown anole lizard outrun climate change? Credit: Ianaré Sévi, CC BY By Amanda Bates, University of Southampton ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 15 2014 - 11:30pm

Sea Lamprey Shows The Origins Of Brain Development

Parasitic lamprey are a challenge to study but an important one- they are an invasive pest in the Great Lakes but difficult to study under controlled conditions because they live up to 10 years and only spawn for a few short weeks in the summer before the ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 17 2014 - 10:00am

Tree Rings Keep A Record Of Arroyo Evolution

A new study uses tree rings to document arroyo evolution along the lower Rio Puerco and Chaco Wash in northern New Mexico. ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 18 2014 - 8:22pm

Macaque Study- Skin Color Is Sexually-selected Heritable Trait

A key indicator of how successfully one species of monkey will breed can be determined by skin color, a new study has shown. Skin coloration in male and female rhesus macaques is an inherited quality – the first example of heritability for a sexually-sele ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 24 2014 - 3:01am

Human Genetic History Reveals Female Dominance

So much for patriarchy. When it comes to evolution, female populations have always been larger than male populations throughout human history, according to a new study in Investigative Genetics which used paternal genetic information to analyse the demogr ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 23 2014 - 11:24pm

Astrobiology: New Molecule Found In Sagittarius B2

Astronomers have discovered an unusual carbon-based molecule – one with a branched structure – contained within a giant gas cloud in interstellar space-  27,000 light years away. Like finding a molecular needle in a cosmic haystack, astronomers have detec ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 27 2014 - 10:15am

Less Evolutionary Admixture- A 2,300 Year Old Skeleton From The Ancient Genome World Found

In a region where modern humans are believed to have originated roughly 200,000 years ago,    DNA from the skeleton of a man who lived 2,330 years ago has a DNA profile that places it among the 'earliest diverged' – oldest in genetic terms – fou ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 29 2014 - 1:49pm

Instant Speciation, Biodiversity- How Gene Doubling Shapes The World

Seedless watermelon, salmon, and strawberries all have one thing in common- unlike most eukaryotic multicellular organisms that have two sets of chromosomes, these organisms are all polyploid, meaning they have three or more sets of chromosomes. Seedless ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 30 2014 - 9:59am

Evolutionary Imbalance: Darwin Was Right About Invasive Species

The idea of evolutionary imbalance when it comes to invasive species is not new, Charles Darwin articulated it.  The concept is that species from regions with deep and diverse evolutionary histories are more likely to become successful invaders in regions ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2014 - 10:01am