A team of biologists has discovered that the distinctive genetic processes of early development help explain patterns of animal development in nature and across the evolutionary tree.
A new study makes it clear that the constant threat of crop parasites repeatedly pushed evolution in strikingly similar directions in ants, creating structures that helped the ants reinforce their partnership with bacteria.
Researchers show that gene loss — not the evolution of new genes — helped drive the fly amanita mushroom into its symbiotic relationship with plants.
Now, after more than 50 generations of selective breeding, a new Cornell University-led study compares gene expression of tame and aggressive silver foxes in two areas of the brain, shedding light on genes responsible for social behavior.
By studying the genome of a kind of octopus not known for its friendliness toward its peers, then testing its behavioral reaction to a popular mood-altering drug called MDMA or “ecstasy,” scientists say they have found preliminary evidence of an evolutionary link between the social behaviors of the sea creature and humans, species separated by 500 million years on the evolutionary tree.
Quantitative tools developed in math and physics to understand bifurcations in dynamical systems could help ecologists and biologists better understand -- and predict -- tipping points in animal societies.
Two to three million years ago, the functional loss of a single gene triggered a series of changes in what would eventually become the modern human species. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report on studies of mice engineered to lack the same gene and resulting data that suggest the lost gene may also have contributed to humanity’s well-documented claim to be among the best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom.
The latest research and features on ecology and wildlife.
Bats can learn to avoid fireflies using sonar or vision, but they learn faster they use both. This is evidence that combining information across senses can increase the power of warning signals. This research has implications for how fireflies evolved in relation to bats.
It may seem that there isn't much cross-discussion between theoretical and empirical scientists, but a new cross-citation network analysis shows there is more overlap than many believe.
The genome sequences of ape parasites related to Plasmodium vivax, the main source of mosquito-borne malaria outside Africa, provide insights on the origin and early evolution of the human parasite. This finding could have implications for better comprehending and eradicating malaria infection worldwide.
Jason Kolbe has been thinking about hurricanes and lizards for many years. The University of Rhode Island professor of biological sciences has measured the length of lizard legs and the size of their toe pads to assess how those factors influence the animal’s ability to cling to vegetation during strong storms. He even used a powerful leaf blower to test his hypotheses in a laboratory.
In the first comprehensive study of the forefoot joints of ancient hominins, to be published online in PNAS, an international team of researchers conclude that adaptations for bipedal walking in primates occurred as early as 4.4 million years ago
Virtually all functions in our bodies require precise interactions between radically different types of molecules. Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas are pursuing what differentiates a fruitful encounter from a dud.
Sulfur isotopes can serve as tracers of atmospheric oxygen, and new data collected from the present-day atmosphere in China by an international team of researchers, led by the University of California San Diego, indicate remarkable similarity to the isotopic footprint found in ancient rocks. This opens up new interpretations of the Archean Period’s sulfur isotope sedimentary signature—a proxy for the origins and evolution of atmospheric oxygen and early life on Earth.
Nobody knows exactly what happens at the eye of the storm. But biologists have published a first-of-its-kind look at the physical characteristics of lizards that seem to make the difference between life and death in a hurricane, as reported on July 25 in the journal Nature. Hint: long, strong back legs do not help like you think they might.
The reproductive history of the unisexual, ladies-only salamander species is full of evolutionary surprises. In a new study, a team of researchers at The Ohio State University traced the animals’ genetic history back 3.4 million years and found some head-scratching details – primarily that they seem to have gone for millions of years without any DNA contributions from male salamanders and still have managed to persist.
Fossils of a new genus and species of an ankylosaurid dinosaur—Akainacephalus johnsoni-- have been unearthed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, U.S.A., and are revealing new details about the diversity and evolution of this group of armored dinosaurs.
For the first time, scientists have sequenced and analyzed the genomes of bacteria that live in anglerfish bulbs. The bacteria were taken from fish specimens collected in the Gulf of Mexico.
A new study finds that a mysterious component of the inner ear acts as a pressure-relief valve, formed by a thin barrier of cellular projections that opens and closes to regulate the release of inner ear fluid.
New fossil evidence shows that ancient primates – including one of the oldest known, Teilhardina brandti – had specialized grooming claws as well as nails. The findings, published online in the Journal of Human Evolution, suggest the transition from claws to nails was more complex than previously thought.
Using a family of photosynthetic bacteria that commonly live in lakes and seas, researchers at the Technion have developed a technology to generate electricity and hydrogen energy. The researchers believe their technology can serve as a promising source of clean, environment-friendly energy that will not emit pollutants during production or use (hydrogen fuel).
Some people argue that animals have personalities: shy, bold, aggressive.It’s more than just cocktail party conversation for anole lizards, whose risk-taking behavior can mean the difference between life and death.For anoles in the Caribbean islands, natural selection predictably favors exploratory behavior in the absence of predators, and ground avoidance when predators are around, according to a new experimental field study in the June 1 issue of Science.
The latest research and features on sex in the Sex and Relationships News Source
An international team of scientists has concluded the asteroid that smashed into Earth 66 million years ago not only wiped out the dinosaurs, but erased the world’s forests and the species that lived in trees. The researchers say only small ground-dwelling birds survived the mass extinction, profoundly changing the course of bird evolution.
The large and small, beautiful and bizarre are among the newly discovered animals, plants and microbes announced by the College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) as the Top 10 New Species for 2018.
In a new study, physicists at the University of Notre Dame examined how the mechanical properties of an environment may shape the social evolution of microbial populations.
There are probably 303 species of mammals left to be discovered by science, most of which are likely to live in tropical regions, according to a predictive model developed by a team of University of Georgia ecologists.
Researchers found that four species of mice evolved from a common ancestor on Mindoro Island in the Philippines, making it the smallest known island where one kind of mammal has branched out into many more species.
A new National Science Foundation grant awarded to Professor of Statistics Steve Wang will help him, his students, and a recent alumna decode why the Earth may be entering a modern extinction.
TAMPA, Fla. – Cancer patients are commonly treated with the maximum dose they are able to withstand that does not cause too many toxic side effects. However, many patients become resistant to these treatments and develop cancer recurrence. Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center are using mathematical modeling based on evolutionary principles to show that adaptive drug treatments based on tumor responses to prior treatment are more effective than maximum-tolerated dose approaches for certain tumor situations.
Genetic archaeologist David Reich discusses how DNA retrieved from inch-long bone in the skull has accelerated our understanding of ancient humans.
Biologists have discovered evidence for a new path of evolution, and with it a deeper understanding of how quickly organisms such as viruses can adapt to their environment. The findings, which address mysteries of how genes acquire new functions and how mutations arise, apply to investigations of viral diseases.
Sea turtles use their flippers to handle prey despite the limbs being evolutionarily designed for locomotion, a discovery by Monterey Bay Aquarium researchers published today in PeerJ.
An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Asier Gomez-Olivencia of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and including Binghamton University anthropologist Rolf Quam, has provided new insights on one of the most famous Neandertal skeletons, discovered over 100 years ago: La Ferrassie 1.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers Emily Setton and Prashant Sharma show that the common house spider and its arachnid relatives have dispensed with a gene involved in creating segmented heads, instead recycling leg genes to accomplish the task.
The University of Adelaide has today signed a memorandum of understanding with Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist and entrepreneur Professor Muhammad Yunus to create a Yunus Social Business Centre in Adelaide.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have cracked the evolutionary mystery of why chimpanzees and gorillas walk on their knuckles: The short explanation is that these African apes climb trees and they are mobile on the ground.
Fish, mice and likely all modern-day vertebrates share genetic elements first used to develop the unpaired dorsal fin in ancient fish. They later copied these elements to produce paired appendages, like pelvic and pectoral fins, arms and legs.
UAlberta researchers first to observe red squirrels killing other males’ pups when females produce two litters.
When the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History reopens in its new home about a year from now, visitors to the evolution gallery will come face to face with a life-size, hyperrealistic sculptural reconstruction of an extinct human relative that roamed southern Africa 2 million years ago.
Individuals with lower-pitched voices are more likely to win elected office because they are believed to be superior leaders. But is voice pitch a reliable signal of leadership quality? And is the bias in favor of selecting leaders with lower voices good or bad for democracy? A novel study is the first to address these questions.
An international research team including Krishna Veeramah, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University, has performed the first genomic analysis of populations that lived on the former territory of the Roman Empire from around 500 AD.
Can one seedling, or one female bird, be so superior to the rest that it will inevitably become the “lucky” one to grow to the sky, or help perpetuate the species? The short answer: No.
A new study almost 20 years in the making provides some of the strongest evidence yet of the "speciation reversal" phenomenon in two lineages of Common Ravens.
An international team of researchers has produced one of the most comprehensive evolutionary pictures to date by looking at one of the world's most iconic animal families - namely elephants, and their relatives mammoths and mastodons-spanning millions of years.
Scientists have found the first major evidence that Neanderthals made cave paintings, indicating they may have had an artistic sense similar to our own.
Scientists from Rutgers University–New Brunswick and elsewhere documented fewer than 10,000 red knot shorebirds in Chile in January, down from more than 13,000 a year earlier.
Fueled by advances in analyzing DNA from the bones of ancient humans, scientists have dramatically expanded the number of samples studied – revealing vast and surprising migrations and genetic mixing of populations in our prehistoric past.
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