Evolution

New Study Lends Additional Support To Grandmother Hypothesis

Kids driving you crazy? Most parents don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call grandma when they need a hand in caring for their children. Grandparents are often an invaluable resource when it comes to childrearing, and can be a lifesaver for frazzled p ...

Article - Eve Hardy - Oct 24 2012 - 11:04am

Are Birds Accelerating Their Rate Of Evolution?

Using the family tree linking every known bird species, scientists now say that birds appear to be accelerating their rate of evolution. Most people did not predict that.  They spent five years creating their tree, using millions of years worth of fossil d ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 1 2012 - 3:47pm

Not Just Genghis Khan- Scythians Show Genetic Blending With Europe 2,000 Years Ago

Genetic blending between Europeans and Asians occurred over 2,000 years ago in the Altai region of Mongolia, according to a new analysis.  The remains of ancient Scythian warriors indicate that this blending was not due to an eastward migration of Europea ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 12 2012 - 1:00pm

Mosaic Evolution Versus Punctuated Equilibrium: Morphological Traits Within Fossil Species Lineages

What happens when the modern evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium collides with the older theory of mosaic evolution? That's the issue addressed by paleobiologists Melanie J Hopkins at the Museum fuer Naturkunde Berlin and Scott Lidgard at t ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 27 2012 - 11:30am

Intelligence And Mental Illness May Be Ancient Genetic Accident

Neuroscientists think they have some insight for evolutionary biologists into how humans, and other mammals, have evolved to have intelligence. They say they have identified the moment in history when the genes that enabled us to think and reason evolved. ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 2 2012 - 7:30pm

HoxD13: Researchers Engineer Zebrafish To Grow A Leg

Neil Shubin alert: Researchers have found evidence that the development of hands and feet occurred through the gain of new DNA elements that activate particular genes- and they used a zebrafish to show it.  The transition from water to land was obviously ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 21 2012 - 4:30am

Homosexuality Is Epigenetic, Says Study

From an evolutionary standpoint, homosexuality is a trait that should not develop and persist in the face of natural selection. Yet it exists in most cultures, among men and women. Analyses have noted that homosexuality can run in families, leading resear ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 11 2012 - 2:06pm

Social Skills Are Key To Bacterial Evolution

Bacteria have lived for millions of years in our planet where, with an impressive capability to adapt, they now colonize virtually every environment, including us. But as tiny one-cell organisms they had to learn to work together to be powerful enough to a ...

Article - Catarina Amorim - Dec 13 2012 - 2:29pm

Why Our Hands Have Their Shape: Humans Love To Fight?

Human hands and their remarkable dexterity have given us everything from the guitar of Segovia to the art of the Dutch masters but, says David Carrier from the University of Utah, they evolved to be what they are for a more practical reason.  As a weapon. ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 20 2012 - 1:45pm

The Great Wrinkled Finger Debate

This past May, I was fortunate enough to take part in a conference in Venice, Italy, which was a retrospective on the legacy of famous paleontologist and author Stephen Jay Gould 10 years after his death. The choice of Venice as the conference venue was a ...

Article - T. Ryan Gregory - Jan 15 2013 - 10:49am