Neanderthals have been imagined as the inferior cousins of modern humans, but a new study by archaeologists at UCL reveals for the first time that they produced weaponry advanced enough to kill at a distance.
In a paper published by Evolution, research led by Swansea University's Dr Catalina Pimiento and co-authored by an international team of scientists from the UK, Europe and the USA examined the biological traits of all sharks and rays before running a series of evolutionary models to seek how gigantism evolved over time.
New Zealand and other islands have experienced invasions of rats, Europe has seen the arrival of the spinycheek crayfish, spreading a deadly disease called crayfish plague: invasive species can put native animal and plant species on the brink of extinction. They often go undetected for a long time, or their damaging impacts are not immediately clear.
Here's a science enigma: Try to explain where the neat, even DNA/RNA helix came from. Ha! Easy one! It probably spun around itself long before first life evolved like it did in this lab. In fact, the twist could have helped select the components of RNA, not the other way around.
Two UBC Okanagan biologists, who have publicly solicited images of wild cats for their research, have answered that question.
Many organisms including insects, amphibians and yeasts use sex pheromones for attracting individuals of the opposite sex, but what happens to sex pheromones as new species emerge? New research publishing January 22 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology from Taisuke Seike and Hironori Niki at the National Institute of Genetics, Japan and Chikashi Shimoda at Osaka City University, Japan studies sex pheromones in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, revealing an “asymmetric” pheromone recognition system in which one pheromone operates extremely stringently whereas the other pheromone is free to undergo a certain degree of diversification, perhaps leading to a first step towards speciation.
Skin colour is one of the most visible and variable traits among humans and scientists have always been curious about how this variation evolved. Now, a study of diverse Latin American populations led by UCL geneticists has identified new genetic variations associated with skin colour.
The fossil site of Malapa in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, discovered by Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in August 2008, has been one of the most productive sites of the 21st century for fossils of early human ancestors or hominins. A new hominin species, Australopithecus sediba (Au. sediba), was named by Berger and his colleagues, following the discovery of two partial skeletons just under two million years old, a juvenile male individual-- Malapa Hominin 1 (MH1)-- and an adult female, Malapa Hominin 2 (MH2). The skeletons are under the custodianship of the University of the Witwatersrand, where they are being kept.
Results, published in Nature Communications, have shown that the nature of the evolutionary forces which act on male fruit flies depend on how many mates a females has.
More than three-quarters of marine mammal and sea turtle populations have significantly increased after listing of the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), according to a study published January 16 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Abel Valdivia of the Center for Biological Diversity in California, and colleagues. The findings suggest that conservation measures such as tailored species management and fishery regulations, in addition to other national and international measures, appear to have been largely successful in promoting species recovery, leading to the delisting of some species and to increases in most populations.
Short-lived wild insects "get old" - losing some of their physical abilities - before they die, new research shows.
The teeth of most mammals, including humans, are only replaced once in a lifetime, when the milk teeth give way to the permanent teeth. This one change is enough to adapt to the increasing size of the jaw. But elephants increase greatly in size and weight over the course of their lives - from a starting weight of 100 kilograms to several tons in adulthood. One single change of teeth would not be enough for the enormous growth of the jaw.
An international collaboration led by scientists from the National University of Ireland, Galway, The University of St Andrews, Trinity College Dublin and the Zoological Society of London has uncovered why the venom of some snakes makes them so much deadlier than others.
Scientists have discovered how locusts change their body colour to adapt to different environments, according to new research published in eLife.
"What we're looking at is evolution at a structural level. A receptor with a toadstool structure that stems from way back and the common ancestors of insects and humans..."
A new University of Michigan study of interbreeding between two species of howler monkeys in Mexico is yielding insights into the forces that drive the evolution of new species.
Though red wolves were declared extinct in the wild by 1980, a team of biologists has found their DNA in a group of canines living on Galveston Island off the coast of Texas.
Researchers used 3D computer modeling to simulate heat exchange in dinosaurs
Scientists have described a fossil plant species that suggests flowers bloomed in the Early Jurassic, more than 174 million years ago, according to new research in the open-access journal eLife.
LAWRENCE -- Stay-at-home dads might find their spirit animal in the smooth guardian frog of Borneo. A new pair of research papers authored by an investigator at the University of Kansas shows the male of the smooth guardian frog species (Limnonectes palavanensis) is a kind of amphibian "Mr. Mom" -- an exemplar of male parental care in the animal kingdom.
More than 85 well-preserved dinosaur footprints - made by at least seven different species - have been uncovered in East Sussex, representing the most diverse and detailed collection of these trace fossils from the Cretaceous Period found in the UK to date.
Gene trees, much like family trees, trace the lineage of a particular gene from its deep ancestral roots to its still-growing stems. By comparing gene trees to species trees, which map the evolutionary history of species, scientists can learn which species have which genes, what new functions those genes gained over time, and which functions they may have lost. Now, scientists at the Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have unveiled a new tool to perform these analyses quickly and without computational headaches.
A team of researchers from France, Sweden, and Denmark have identified a new strain of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes plague, in DNA extracted from 5,000-year-old human remains. Their analyses, publishing December 6 in the journal Cell, suggest that this strain is the closest ever identified to the genetic origin of plague.
An ancient, dolphin-like marine reptile resembles its distant relative in more than appearance. Molecular and microstructural analysis of a Stenopterygius ichthyosaur reveals that these animals were most likely warm-blooded, had insulating blubber and used their coloration as camouflage from predators.
On 3 December 2018, the laboratory of Professor Axel Meyer, University of Konstanz published new findings of an experimental evolutionary project that ran for 30 years on the genomic mechanisms of sex determination in swordtail fish in the journal "Nature Communications". Dr Paolo Franchini, evolutionary biologist and Junior Research Group Leader at the University of Konstanz is the lead author of this collaboration with the laboratory of Professor Manfred Schartl of the University of Würzburg
Fires that contribute to deforestation spiked six-fold in Colombia in the year after an historic 2016 peace agreement ended decades of conflict between FARC guerrilla and government forces, according to a study in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
In a first-of-a-kind study published Nature Ecology & Evolution, scientists provide evidence that implementing the peace accords in Colombia coincided with a spike of fires and deforestation in protected areas.
If you ever find yourself staring down a manta ray, you'll probably notice two things right away: the massive, flapping fins that produce the shark cousin's 20-foot wingspan and the two fleshy growths curling out of its head that give it the nickname "devil ray." A new San Francisco State University study shows that these two very different features have the same origin -- a discovery that reflects an important lesson for understanding the diversity of life.
One of the most fundamental unexplained questions in modern science is how life began. Scientists generally believe that simple molecules present in early planetary environments were converted to more complex ones that could have helped jumpstart life by the input of energy from the environment. Scientists consider the early Earth was suffused with many kinds of energy, from the high temperatures produced by volcanoes to the ultraviolet radiation beamed down by the sun.
Human habitat modification is favouring the same species everywhere, while unique species are disappearing, finds a study publishing on December 4 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, led by Tim Newbold at University College London and Andy Purvis at the Natural History Museum in London.
Predators have been identified as the shaping force behind mutually beneficial relationships between species such as clownfish and anemones. The finding results from a University of Queensland and Deakin University-led study.
It sounds like the plot of the world's tiniest horror movie: deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a newly discovered species of wasp transforms a "social" spider into a zombie-like drone that abandons its colony to do the wasp's bidding.
Sometimes, there is no “tragedy” in the tragedy of the commons, according to a new analysis that challenges a widely accepted theory. In an analysis of eight case studies from around the world, researchers found that people can successfully share and sustainably use resources, under certain conditions.
New research disputes a long-held view that our earliest tool-bearing ancestors contributed to the demise of large mammals in Africa over the last several million years. Instead, the researchers argue that long-term environmental change drove the extinctions, mainly in the form of grassland expansion likely caused by falling atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Male birds-of-paradise are justly world famous for their wildly extravagant feather ornaments, complex calls, and shape-shifting dance moves—all evolved to attract a mate. New research published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology suggests for the first time that female preferences drive the evolution of physical and behavioral trait combinations that may also be tied to where the male does his courting: on the ground or up in the trees.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $500,000 grant to a multi-institution research network team to advance understanding of global eco-evolutionary dynamics.
Christopher Doughty and a team of researchers studied more than 4,000 leaves in the tropics of Peru. Not only did they find that climate change will likely cause leaves to become thinner, but these leaves will become darker and absorb more of the sun’s energy as the planet warms.
Truffles are thought of as dining delicacies but they play an important role in soil ecosystem services as the fruiting bodies of the ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal symbionts residing on host plant roots. An international team sought insights into the ECM lifestyle of truffle-forming species through a comparative analysis of eight fungal genomes.
University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists have made a fresh attempt to untangle the scorpion family tree using not the shape and structure of the arachnids’ bodies, but the shape of their venom.
What if we could observe genes firing off signals to cause some behaviors? We're getting closer. Researchers were able to directly match gene regulation with ritual mating behavior in fish. Their research field may also give some insight into autism spectrum disorder.
A review published in the Nov. 9 issue of Science explores the complexity of evolution’s predictability in extraordinary detail. In it, researchers at Kenyon College, Michigan State University and Washington University in St. Louis closely examine evidence from a number of empirical studies of evolutionary repeatability and contingency in an effort to fully interrogate ideas about contingency’s role in evolution.
Evolutionary theory predicts that the fitness of an individual is maximized when the genetic differences between its parents are neither too small nor too large but some ideal amount known as the optimal mating distance.
Botanists at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture have created a much-needed second edition of the “Flora of the Pacific Northwest.”
Scientists at Scripps Research and their collaborators have created microorganisms that may recapitulate key features of organisms thought to have lived billions of years ago, allowing them to explore questions about how life evolved.
New research by scientists from the University of Chicago shows that just one gene controls whether a certain species of butterfly has white or yellow spots on its wings.
Cal State Fullerton (CSUF) paleontologists have described a new genus and species of walrus and named it after CSUF Titans and Orange County, where the extinct, tuskless fossil was discovered.
Scientists at New York University and the University of Chicago have created fruit flies carrying reconstructed ancient genes to reveal how ancient mutations drove major evolutionary changes in embryonic development—the impact of which we see today.
Gone are the days of heavy science textbooks with over-used examples and hard-to-grasp lessons. The Genetic Science Learning Center (GSLC) at the University of Utah is bringing science education into the 21st century with an online, interactive and multimedia curriculum that teaches up-to-date concepts in evolution and genetics to high school students.
Newly uncovered newspaper articles shed light on Mendel’s motivations.
FSU Professor of Biological Science Scott Steppan and his former postdoctoral researcher John Schenk, now at Georgia Southern University, developed a new model that shows how geography can play a major role in how families of animals evolve and result in many species. The research was part of a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to understand why the superfamily Muroidea (which includes the subfamily Sigmodontinae) is the most diverse branch of the mammal family tree.
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