Evolution

If you haven't watched NOVA's 3-part special on human evolution, you're missing out. It's all online, so you have no excuse for missing it. It's visually amazing and the science is explained clearly. The series gives an outstanding ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Nov 19 2009 - 10:08pm

Origin Of Life? Long Chains Of RNA Generated Using Just Warm Water

A key riddle surrounding the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors but a study appearing in the Journal of Biological Chemistry says researchers in Italy have reconstruc ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 20 2009 - 4:03pm

The Jacuzzification Of Evolution

“Come on into the hot tub,” I told my three year old boy. But he wouldn’t budge. No way was he joining his older sister in there. “It’s warm, and it feels nice!” I urged, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” But it was only when I turned off the jets that I ...

Article - Mark Changizi - Nov 23 2009 - 5:04pm

Feeding The Birds Alters Evolution's Course

While feeding birds may seem like an ordinary and innocuous activity, scientists are reporting this week that it can have a profound effect on the evolutionary future of a certain species of bird, and those changes can be seen in the very near term. A rep ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 3 2009 - 4:57pm

Female Fruit Flies Can Be Too Attractive For Their Own Good

Female fruit flies can be too attractive to the opposite sex –– too attractive for their own good –– say biologists at UC Santa Barbara. In a new PLoS Biology study, they report that too much male attention directed toward attractive females can lead to sm ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 8 2009 - 1:32pm

Molar Emergence Says Much About Evolution Of Apes, Humans

From the smallest South American monkeys to the largest African apes, the timing of molar development and eruption is closely attuned to many fundamental aspects of a primate's biology, according to Gary Schwartz, a researcher at the Institute of Huma ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 28 2009 - 7:58pm

Mosquitoes Attract Mates By 'Harmonizing'

The authors of a new study published in Current Biology say they've gained new insight into the sex lives of malaria spreading mosquitoes. In finding a partner of the right species type, male and female mosquitoes depend on their ability to "sing ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 31 2009 - 1:05pm

DNA Sequencing Answers Confounding Questions About Human Evolution

A team of anthropologists has for the first time directly analyzed DNA from a member of our own species who lived around 30,000 years ago, allowing scientists a unique glimpse into the history of evolution. Their research is detailed in the December 31 iss ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 31 2009 - 6:05pm

Darwin's Finches Take On Alien Parasites

University of Utah biologists have found that finches – the birds Charles Darwin famously studied – develop antibodies against two parasites (a pox virus and a nest fly) that moved to the Galapagos, suggesting the birds can fight the alien invaders. With t ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 8 2010 - 7:00pm

From Crickets To Whales, Animal Calls Controlled By Metabolic Rates

Researchers from the University of Florida and Oklahoma State University have found common denominators in the calls of hundreds of species of insects, birds, fish, frogs, lizards and mammals that can be predicted with simple mathematical models. Compiling ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 6 2010 - 2:42pm