Evolution

Three Waves Of Innovation In Vertebrate Evolution

A new study, published in Science, analyzed regulatory elements in the vertebrate genome and found three waves of evolutionary innovation in the evolution of vertebrates. Many important evolutionary changes have their roots in changes in regulatory elemen ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Aug 20 2011 - 10:50am

The Dude Sapolsky On Behavioral Biology

You ever wondered why it is that we share only 50% of our genes with a sibling but 98% with chimpanzees? Humans are a freak of nature. We are in between a so called ‘ tournament species ’ and a ‘ pair-bonding species ’. In other words: naturally very aggr ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - May 26 2016 - 12:36am

Did Interbreeding With Neanderthals And Denisovans Boost Our Immune System?

In 2008, a fossil tooth and finger bone were found in a cave in Siberia. After analysis it turned out to belong to a new species of human, now known as the Denisovans. In 2010, a draft of the Neanderthal genome was released, providing indications for pote ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Aug 26 2011 - 6:31am

The Bird Digit Mystery

What is the origin of bird digits? This question has caused a lot of head-scratching and beard-stroking in evolutionary biologists. Paleontological evidence suggests that the three digits in birds develop from digit position 1, 2 and 3 (thumb, index and m ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Sep 6 2011 - 10:22am

Evolution Of The Female Orgasm

The female orgasm has been a topic of debate among evolutionary biologists (and among many other people as well, of course). Is it adaptive, or a by-product of the male orgasm? Does it suck sperm into the uterus, or strengthens the pair bond? Or did it ‘t ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Sep 12 2011 - 6:17am

Flexible Sex Determination

Sex determination is obviously an important developmental event with great ecological and evolutionary consequences. A large variety of sex determination mechanisms exists, and the evolution of many of these is still relatively poorly understood. Previous ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Sep 13 2011 - 8:56am

Inorganic Life?

What is life? As tough questions come, this is a good one. It seems simple at first, but even after great advances in biology and a sizeable increase in understanding how life works, there appears to be no real consensus on life. To quote Carl Sagan: ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Sep 18 2011 - 1:10pm

On 'Self'-ish genes

In her 1979 article Gene-Juggling, Mary Midgley criticises Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene with the words: 'Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be jealous, elephants abstract or biscuits teleological.' This s ...

Blog Post - Stephen Lee - Sep 22 2011 - 7:12am

Epigenetic Changes In Genomes Happen A Lot, But They Rarely Last

We've often defended Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.  Publishing 50 years before Darwin, he can be forgiven for not having 'the greatest idea anyone ever had' and in the last few years,  geneticists have gotten on board as well and no longer dismiss ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 20 2011 - 2:00pm

Why You Want To Quit Facebook

Tuesday evening, Facebook made major changes to its news feed and today the Internet is a hornet’s nest of complaints, protests, and threats. There is a new round of “quit Facebook” memes, and a collective groan of pain from millions of users. Similar diss ...

Article - Michael W. Taft - Sep 21 2011 - 9:25pm