Feature Channels: Evolution and Darwin

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Generally seen as antithetical to one another, evolution and religion can hardly fit in a scientific discourse simultaneously. However, biologist Dr Aldemaro Romero Jr., Baruch College, USA, devotes his latest research article, now published in the open access Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), to observing the influences a few major religions have had on evolutionists and their scientific thinking over the centuries.

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The scientific breakthrough, carried out by researchers at UGR and the Spanish National Research Council, is of great significance to the field of biological anthropology. It also has further implications for paleoanthropology, paleodemographics, forensic science and orthodontics, among other disciplines.

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How birds' beaks evolved characteristic shapes to eat different food is a classic example of evolution by natural selection.

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Scientists on an expedition through Madidi National Park—the world’s most biologically diverse protected area— have now discovered seven animal species new to science, finds that were made in 2015 and recently confirmed through careful comparisons with known species, according to the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) and local partners.

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Researchers from Vetmeduni Vienna for the first time collected quantified data on hybrid forms of two species of the northern house mosquito in eastern Austria. The reproductive hybrid feeds – in contrast to the two known species of house mosquito – on the blood of both birds and humans. Hybrid mosquitoes could therefore serve as a vector for the transmission of avian diseases to people. Identification of the three forms is only possible through molecular biology. Morphologically they are indistinct. The study was published in the journal

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Multiple dispersals of penguins reached Australia after the continent split from Antarctica, including 'giant penguins' that may have lived there after they went extinct elsewhere, according to a study published April 26, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Travis Park from Monash University, Australia, and colleagues.

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One of the startling discoveries about life on Earth in the past 25 years is that it can − and does − flourish beneath the ocean floor, in the planet’s dark, dense, rocky crust.

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According to new studies, wide hips do not reduce locomotor efficiency.

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Teeth can reveal a lot, such as how the earliest mammals lived with their neighbors. Researchers have uncovered dozens of fossilized teeth in Kuwajima, Japan and identified this as a new species of tritylodontid, an animal family that links the evolution of mammals from reptiles. This finding suggests that tritylodontids co-existed with some of the earliest mammal species for millions of years, overturning beliefs that mammals wiped out mammal-like reptiles soon after they emerged.

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Most stream-resident fish stay throughout winter despite the ice. This has been shown by Christine Weber, previous researcher at Umeå University, by tagging trout and sculpins with transponders to follow fish migration. Fish's general state of health is the single most important factor for surviving winter. The findings have been published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

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Ocean Currents Push Phytoplankton and Pollution Around the Globe, Snowmobiling Could Be Hard Hit by Climate Change, Which Trees Face Death in Drought? More Stories in the Climate Change Channel

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By combining genetic and anatomical data of extinct and living lemurs, a Stony Brook University team of evolutionary biologists has developed the most complete evolutionary tree of lemurs yet. With extinct and living lemurs in a single evolutionary tree, scientists can better understand the evolution of these primates and what their future may be on earth. Their findings are published in the journal Systemic Biology.

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How easily did life arise on Earth, how likely is it on other planets? A new experiment strongly supports the idea that very early life coding molecules, ancestors of RNA and DNA, arose in primordial puddles with relative ease and speed, and not necessarily just in rarer fiery cataclysms.

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Chimpanzees use manipulative dexterity to evaluate and select figs, a vital resource when preferred foods are scarce, according to a new Dartmouth-led study just published by Interface Focus.

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If shooting arrows from a crossbow into cubes of ballistics gelatin doesn't sound like biological science to you, you've got a lot to learn from University of Illinois animal biology professor Philip Anderson, who did just that to answer a fundamental question about how animals use their fangs, claws and tentacles to puncture other animals.

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Long-snouted crocodylians in South America, India evolved separately to adopt river-dwelling lifestyle, protruding eyes.

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New research based on high-resolution x-ray movies reveals that despite having extremely underdeveloped muscles and wings, young birds acquire a mature flight stroke early in their development, initially relying heavily on their legs and wings to work in tandem to power the strenuous movement. The new study, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, is important for understanding the development of flight in modern birds and reconstructing its origins in extinct dinosaurs.

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Several species of mammoth are thought to have roamed across the North American continent. A new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, provides DNA evidence to show that these mammoths, which should only mate within their species boundaries, were in fact likely to be interbreeding.

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Latest analysis shows that human limbs share a genetic programme with the gills of cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates, providing evidence to support a century-old theory on the origin of limbs that had been widely discounted.

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Promiscuity is common among females in the animal kingdom. Mating with multiple males can increase genetic diversity and enhance the survival of the offspring. When given a choice, female house mice mate with multiple males. "The females select their partner on the basis of their scent markings. These chemical signals provide a surprising amount of information about possible partners, including their health and disease resistance," explains Kerstin Thonhauser of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology at Vetmeduni Vienna.

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A new UCLA study suggests that the virus possesses the ability to mutate rapidly, allowing the current outbreak to spread swiftly around the world.

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Suppose you were trying to design a vaccine to combat next season's influenza virus. Having a detailed map that tells you exactly how various strains of the flu bug will evolve would be extremely helpful.

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What does the Red Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” have to do with biology? “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” Sexual reproduction protects species by continuously shuffling their genes. A UI-led team bolstered the theory by studying snails’ resilience to parasitic worms.

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In groundbreaking new work, Natalie Wright, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Montana, has discovered a predictable trend in the evolution of bird shape.

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The pace of evolution is typically measured in millions of years, as random, individual mutations accumulate over generations, but researchers at Cornell and Bar-Ilan Universities have uncovered a new mechanism for mutation in primates that is rapid, coordinated, and aggressive. The discovery raises questions about the accuracy of using the more typical mutation process as an estimate to date when two species diverged, as well as the extent to which this and related enzymes played a role in primate evolution.

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Sequencing the genomes of hundreds of strains of the wine yeast S. cerevisiae has revealed little genetic diversity and high levels of inbreeding. In many cases, yeast strains sold by different companies were almost genetically identical. The results, published in the April issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, a publication of the Genetics Society of America, suggest that winemakers attempting to develop improved wine yeasts will need to look to creating hybrids with more exotic strains.

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Field Museum examines life history of ancient mammal.

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A team of international paleontologists demonstrate that ancient mammal relatives known as therapsids were suited to the drastic climate change by having shorter life expectancies and would have had a better chance of success by breeding at younger ages than their predecessors.

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Japanese researchers show how thunderbugs provide hints to a sexual mystery.

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For about 60 million years during the Eocene epoch, the Indian subcontinent was a huge island. Having broken off from the ancient continent of Gondwanaland, the Indian Tectonic Plate drifted toward Eurasia.

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An international team used an amplification technique to sequence the genomes of two divergent Plasmodium malaria species from miniscule volumes of chimpanzee blood to find clues about the evolution and pathogenicity of Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest malaria parasite that affects people. Understanding the origins of emerging diseases – and more established disease agents -- is critical to gauge future human infection risks and find new treatment and prevention approaches.

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Think your DNA is all human? Think again. And a new discovery suggests it’s even less human than scientists previously thought. Nineteen new pieces of non-human DNA -- left by viruses that first infected our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago -- have just been found, lurking between our own genes.

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Researchers at Yale and the Smithsonian Institution say it's time to settle a very old food fight. In a study published March 18 in the journal Ecology and Evolution, authors Matt Davis and Silvia Pineda-Munoz argue that scientists need to focus as much on "when" animals eat as they do "what" animals eat. Without the proper time context, they say, an animal's diet can tell very different stories.

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Residents of the remote equatorial islands of Melanesia share fragments of genetic code with two extinct human species. That’s the key finding of a new study published March 17 in the journal Science. An international team contributed to the research, which compared the DNA sequences of 35 modern people living on islands off the coast of New Guinea with DNA drawn from two early human species: Denisovans, whose remains were found in Siberia, and Neandertals, first discovered in Germany. “Substantial amounts of Neandertal and Denisovan DNA can now be robustly identified in the genomes of present-day Melanesians, allowing new insights into human evolutionary history,” they wrote. “As genome-scale data from worldwide populations continues to accumulate, a nearly complete catalog of surviving archaic lineages may soon be within reach.”

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Experimental evolution of a hermaphroditic nematode proves deterministic maternal effects can give offspring a head start in life.

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Human use of copper dating back to the Bronze Age has shaped the evolution of bacteria, leading to bugs that are highly resistant to the metal’s antibacterial properties.

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Cornell researchers have quantified what makes the New Caledonian crow's beak different and how it got that way. Their findings were published March 9, 2016 in the journal Scientific Reports.

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The remains of a new species of horse-sized dinosaur reveal how Tyrannosaurus rex became one of Earth's top predators, a study suggests.

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Spiders are known to be the classic example of insectivorous predators. Zoologists from the University of Basel, the US and UK have now been able to show that their diet is more diverse than expected. Their findings show that spiders like to spice up their menu with the occasional vegetarian meal. The Journal of Arachnology has published the results.

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Parents know all too well the nightmare of ridding lice infestations. But for Japanese macaques at least, 'popular girls' need not fret so much. In new research published in Scientific Reports, primatologists have found that females at the center of their social network had less lice thanks to the extra grooming they receive from their many friends.

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Processing food before eating likely played key role in human evolution, study finds.

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Researchers from Boston College, US, have revealed the global spread of an ancient group of retroviruses that affected about 28 of 50 modern mammals' ancestors some 15 to 30 million years ago.

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For most guys in the animal kingdom, sex is a once-and-done event. Females from species like rabbits and cows get sperm from their mates and not much else. But in a Forum article published March 3 in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, researchers suggest that these limited encounters can supply resources to females in seminal fluid, and females might have evolved to seek out such seminal resources, even when the amount of fluid is small.

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Researchers at the University of British Columbia have identified a common ancestral gene that enabled the evolution of advanced life over a billion years ago.

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As scientists look for replacements for our dwindling stock of antibiotics, the evolution of resistance is never far from their minds. Washington University in St. Louis biologist R. Fredrik Inglis explored the ability of bacteria to become resistant to a toxin called a bacteriocin by growing them for many generations in the presence of the toxin.

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Young children will spontaneously invent tool behaviours to solve novel problems, without the help of adults, much as non-human great apes have been observed to do. The findings, from the University of Birmingham, are contrary to the popular belief that basic tool use in humans requires social learning.

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The dodo, an extinct bird popularly recognized for its stupidity that may have led to their quick extinction, may actually have been fairly smart, at least as smart as a common pigeon. This finding is based on a study led by Eugenia Gold of Stony Brook University, and published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

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Employing cutting edge bioinformatics & next generation sequencing techniques, scientists have reconstructed the spider ‘tree of life’ to come to intriguing new conclusions about the evolution of the web, something which has important implications for the overall story of spider evolution.

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Scientists have sequenced the entire mitochondrial genome of the ancient glyptodont, a giant, strange mammal and ancestor of the modern-day armadillo, which first appeared approximately 4 million years ago, roaming the Earth until its extinction during the Ice Age.

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”Now we want to examine the next stage: If we change the dynamics of the regulatory circuits, will we be able to change the body plan? For example, will a sea cucumber grow a skeleton like a sea urchin?” – Dr. Smadar Ben-Tabou de-Leon from the Department of Marine Biology at the University of Haifa, who undertook the study