Feature Channels: Evolution and Darwin

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Released: 24-Sep-2015 12:05 PM EDT
Tiny Mitochondria Play Outsized Role in Human Evolution and Disease
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Mitochondria are not only the power plants of our cells; these tiny structures also play a central role in our physiology. By enabling flexible responses to new environments, mitochondria have helped humans adapt and evolve.

17-Sep-2015 7:05 PM EDT
Stem Cell Research Hints at Evolution of Human Brain
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

Researchers at UCSF have succeeded in mapping the genetic signature of a unique group of stem cells in the human brain that seem to generate most of the neurons in our massive cerebral cortex.

Released: 18-Sep-2015 4:05 PM EDT
‘Tree of Life’ for 2.3M Species Released; U-M Plays Key Role in Project
University of Michigan

A first draft of the “tree of life” for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes has been released, and two University of Michigan biologists played a key role in its creation.

Released: 18-Sep-2015 1:05 PM EDT
RBI Geneticists Prove: Satellite DNA Regulates Gene Activity under Specific Environmental Conditions
Newswise

A team of geneticists led by Prof. Đurđica Ugarković of the Croatian Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) have for the first time proved that satellite DNA plays an important regulatory role in how organisms adapt to stressful changes in their environment. These results could in the future help scientists explain how an organism successfully survives stress. The study was published in the leading genetic journal PLoS Genetics.

   
Released: 10-Sep-2015 9:05 AM EDT
Fossil Trove Adds a New Limb to Human Family Tree
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Working in a cave complex deep beneath South Africa’s Malmani dolomites, an international team of scientists has brought to light an unprecedented trove of hominin fossils — more than 1,500 well-preserved bones and teeth — representing the largest, most complete set of such remains found to date in Africa. The discovery of the fossils, cached in a barely accessible chamber in a subterranean labyrinth not far from Johannesburg, adds a new branch to the human family tree, a creature dubbed Homo naledi.

Released: 10-Sep-2015 8:05 AM EDT
New Species of Human Relative Discovered
New York University

An international research team, which includes NYU anthropologists Scott Williams and Myra Laird, has discovered a new species of a human relative. Homo naledi, uncovered in a cave outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, sheds light on the diversity of our genus and possibly its origin.

2-Sep-2015 2:00 PM EDT
Did Grandmas Make People Pair Up?
University of Utah

If you are in a special relationship with another person, thank grandma – not just yours, but all grandmothers since humans evolved.

   
7-Sep-2015 9:05 PM EDT
Shouldering the Burden of Evolution
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

What the last common ancestor between humans and African apes looked like has remained unclear. A new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco shows that important clues lie in the shoulder.

   
Released: 2-Sep-2015 2:05 PM EDT
Groundbreaking CSU Study Finds Changing Environment Can Lead to Rapid Evolution
Colorado State University

Results of a groundbreaking Colorado State University study which were published this week in the journal Nature, show that guppies from transplanted populations initially respond to a lack of predators with coping mechanisms that include changes in the expression of genes in the brain; some of the changes were beneficial, while others were disadvantageous. When the researchers compared how the brains of the introduced guppies evolved to incorporate the initial coping responses, they found that the genes that exhibited the initially maladaptive responses evolved rapidly to allow future generations to thrive better in the new environment. The study, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, is being hailed as groundbreaking.

28-Aug-2015 4:15 PM EDT
Scientists Discover Key Clues in Turtle Evolution
NYIT

A team led by NYIT Assistant Professor Gaberiel Bever has determined that Eunotosaurus africanus is the earliest known branch of the turtle tree of life

31-Aug-2015 4:05 PM EDT
FSU Researcher: Change in Environment Can Lead to Rapid Evolution
Florida State University

A new study by Florida State University is showing that rapid evolution can occur in response to environmental changes.

Released: 2-Sep-2015 11:05 AM EDT
Evidence That Earth's First Mass Extinction Was Caused by Critters, Not Catastrophe
Vanderbilt University

In the popular mind, mass extinctions are associated with catastrophic events, like giant meteorite impacts and volcanic super-eruptions. But the world’s first known mass extinction, which took place about 540 million years ago, now appears to have had a more subtle cause: evolution itself. “People have been slow to recognize that biological organisms can also drive mass extinction,” said Simon Darroch, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University.

Released: 31-Aug-2015 3:05 PM EDT
Study Reveals Human Body Has Gone Through Four Stages of Evolution
Binghamton University, State University of New York

Research into 430,000-year-old fossils collected in northern Spain found that the evolution of the human body’s size and shape has gone through four main stages, according to a paper published this week.

28-Aug-2015 1:05 PM EDT
Tail As Old As Time – Researchers Trace Ankylosaur’s Tail Evolution
North Carolina State University

How did the ankylosaur get its tail club? According to research that traces the evolution of the ankylosaur’s distinctive tail, the handle arrived first on the scene, and the knot at the end of the tail followed.

28-Aug-2015 3:10 PM EDT
Research Team Creates Model to Predict Cellular Evolution
Stony Brook University

Scientists have not been able to understand and predict how cells evolve in our bodies, and this process is important because evolving cell populations are at the core of drug-resistant infections and cancer development. Now a research team led by Gábor Balázsi, PhD, of Stony Brook University, has developed a synthetic biological model that validates computational predictions of how quickly and in what manner cells change in the presence or absence of a drug. Their findings are published in a paper in Molecular Systems Biology.

22-Aug-2015 3:00 PM EDT
Bacterial Infection Makes Farmers Out of Amoebae
Washington University in St. Louis

A bacterial infection turns non-farming social amoebae into farmers Washington University evolutionary biologists report in the August 24 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Released: 19-Aug-2015 11:05 AM EDT
Female Fish Genitalia Evolve in Response to Predators, Interbreeding
North Carolina State University

Female fish in the Bahamas have developed ways of showing males that “No means no.”

10-Aug-2015 12:05 PM EDT
When Fruit Flies Get Sick, Their Offspring Become More Diverse
North Carolina State University

When fruit flies are attacked by parasites or bacteria they respond by producing offspring with greater genetic variability. These findings demonstrate that parents may purposefully alter the genotypes of their offspring to increase their chance of survival.

Released: 5-Aug-2015 11:05 AM EDT
IU Biologist Contributes to International Effort to Expand Theory of Evolution
Indiana University

An Indiana University professor is part of an international team of biologists working to expand Darwin's theory of evolution to encompass factors that influence a species' growth and development beyond genetics -- as well as to consider the impact of species on the environment.

Released: 23-Jul-2015 11:05 AM EDT
Small Oxygen Jump in Atmosphere Helped Enable Animals Take First Breaths
Virginia Tech

Measurements of iron speciation in ancient rocks were used to construct the chemistry of ancient oceans. Analysis suggests that it took less oxygen than previously thought to trigger the appearance of complicated life forms.

Released: 21-Jul-2015 1:05 PM EDT
Evolution Not Just Mutation Drives Development of Cancer
University of Colorado Cancer Center

A paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues against the commonly held "accumulation of mutations" model of oncogenesis in favor of a model that depends on evolutionary pressures acting on populations of cells.

Released: 19-Jul-2015 7:05 PM EDT
Finding the Origins of Life in a Drying Puddle
Georgia Institute of Technology

Anyone who’s ever noticed a water puddle drying in the sun has seen an environment that may have driven the type of chemical reactions that scientists believe were critical to the formation of life on the early Earth.

Released: 14-Jul-2015 7:05 PM EDT
You Need This Hole in the Head ─ to Be Smart
University of Adelaide

University of Adelaide researchers have shown that intelligence in animal species can be estimated by the size of the holes in the skull through which the arteries pass.

14-Jul-2015 9:00 AM EDT
Study Discovers Human Hands May Be More Primitive Than Chimp's
Stony Brook University

Today, Nature is publishing a paper "The evolution of human and ape hand proportions," a study that discovers that human hands may be more primitive than chimp's.

Released: 13-Jul-2015 3:05 PM EDT
NM Professors, Graduate Explore Tiny, Complex Brain of Old World Monkey
New Mexico State University (NMSU)

The brain hidden inside the oldest known Old World monkey skull has been visualized for the first time with the help of two professors and a graduate from New Mexico State University. The ancient monkey, known scientifically as Victoriapithecus, first made headlines in 1997 when its fossilized skull was discovered on an island in Kenya’s Lake Victoria, where it lived 15 million years ago by NMSU anthropology professors Brenda Benefit and Monte McCrossin.

Released: 8-Jul-2015 9:05 AM EDT
Evolution Study Finds Recent Agricultural Pest Stems From One Fly Generation's Big Genetic Shift
Kansas State University

A new study involving a Kansas State University entomologist reveals that the genes of a fruit fly that has plagued American apple producers for more than 150 years is the result of an extremely rapid evolutionary change.

Released: 29-Jun-2015 5:05 PM EDT
Exit Dinosaurs, Enter Fishes
University of California San Diego

A pair of paleobiologists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego have determined that the world’s most numerous and diverse vertebrates ¬– ray-finned fishes – began their ecological dominance of the oceans 66 million years ago, aided by the mass extinction event that killed off dinosaurs.

18-Jun-2015 7:00 PM EDT
Doves Share Pigeon Gene for Head Crests
University of Utah

The same gene that creates elaborate head crests in domestic rock pigeons also makes head and neck feathers grow up instead of down in domesticated doves to give them head crests, although theirs are much simpler and caused by a different mutation, University of Utah researchers found.

22-Jun-2015 9:05 AM EDT
Studies Find Early European Had Recent Neanderthal Ancestor
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)

The new study, co-led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator David Reich at Harvard Medical School and Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, provides the first genetic evidence that humans interbred with Neanderthals in Europe.

16-Jun-2015 9:15 AM EDT
Scientists Find Evidence of Key Ingredient During Dawn of Life
University of North Carolina Health Care System

Scientists from the UNC School of Medicine provide the first direct experimental evidence for how primordial proteins developed the ability to accelerate the central chemical reaction necessary to synthesize proteins and thus allow life to arise not long after Earth was created.

Released: 18-Jun-2015 5:05 AM EDT
‘Genomics Holds Key to Understanding Ecological and Evolutionary Processes’
University of Southampton

Scientists at the University of Southampton think that Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) of invasive organisms holds the key to furthering our understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes.

Released: 15-Jun-2015 3:05 PM EDT
Climate and Ecosystem Instability Delayed Dinosaur Success
Stony Brook University

Climate and plant community instability may have hampered the success of dinosaurs in the tropics during the Late Triassic Period (235-201 million years ago), according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). This finding was reached by co-author Alan H. Turner, PhD, of Stony Brook University, and an international team of scientists by examining the sedimentary rocks and fossil record preserved in the Chinle Formation in northern New Mexico to investigate the environment in tropical latitudes during the Late Triassic.

Released: 15-Jun-2015 7:05 AM EDT
Self-Awareness Not Unique to Mankind
University of Warwick

Humans are unlikely to be the only animal capable of self-awareness, a new study has shown.

Released: 8-Jun-2015 11:00 AM EDT
Virus Evolution and Human Behavior Shape Global Patterns of Flu Movement
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

The global movement patterns of all four seasonal influenza viruses are illustrated in research published today in the journal Nature, providing a detailed account of country-to-country virus spread over the last decade and revealing unexpected differences in circulation patterns between viruses.

28-May-2015 12:00 PM EDT
Do Cheaters Have an Evolutionary Advantage?
Washington University in St. Louis

What is it with cheating? Cheaters seem to have an immediate advantage over cooperators, but do they have an evolutionary advantage? A study published in Current Biology suggests the benefits of cheating change with its prevalence,in a population. Cheaters may succeed, for example, only when they are rare, and fail when they become so numerous they push out cooperators.

Released: 3-Jun-2015 9:05 AM EDT
Study Shows Early Bird Catches More Than Just the Worm
North Dakota State University

A group of international researchers published in Functional Ecology found that compared with early birds, late risers are more likely to be cuckolded. The study’s lead author, Dr. Timothy Greives of North Dakota State University, Fargo, said they found that early risers used that time to mate with birds not in their social pair. Melatonin-implanted birds did not sire as many birds and later cared for nestlings fathered by an early riser in their nest. Study results provide insight into the evolution of the body clock.

Released: 2-Jun-2015 12:05 PM EDT
Natural Variants in Genetic System That Affects Aging Found in New UAB Study
University of Alabama at Birmingham

A study of the rapid evolution of the insulin-signaling molecular network that regulates growth, reproduction, metabolism and aging lays important groundwork for future studies.

   
Released: 2-Jun-2015 9:00 AM EDT
Many Endangered Species Are Back — but Face New Struggles
University of Vermont

A study of marine mammals finds that several once endangered species, including the humpback whale, the northern elephant seal and green sea turtles, have recovered and are repopulating their former ranges. But returning species create a new challenge: some people interpret the return of these animals as a hostile invasion. The study presents strategies for “lifting baselines” to help manage and celebrate recovering species.

29-May-2015 11:15 AM EDT
New Evidence Emerges on the Origins of Life
University of North Carolina Health Care System

New research shows that the close linkage between the physical properties of amino acids, the genetic code, and protein folding was likely the key factor in the evolution from building blocks to organisms when Earth’s first life was emerging from the primordial soup.

Released: 21-May-2015 5:05 AM EDT
The Neanderthal Dawn Chorus
Bournemouth University

Research by Bournemouth University's John Stewart has found that birds living during the Ice Age were larger, with a mixture of birds unlike any seen today, and many species now exotic to Britain living in Northern England.

18-May-2015 2:00 PM EDT
Stony Brook Archaeologists Find the Earliest Evidence of Stone Tool Making
Stony Brook University

Our ancestors were making stone tools some 700,000 years earlier than we thought. That’s the finding co-led by Stony Brook University's Drs. Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis—who have found the earliest stone artifacts, dating 3.3 million years ago.

13-May-2015 10:05 AM EDT
Agriculture, Declining Mobility Drove Humans' Shift to Lighter Bones
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Modern lifestyles have made our bones lighter weight than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. A study of the bones of hundreds of humans who lived during the past 33,000 years in Europe finds the rise of agriculture and a corresponding fall in mobility drove the change, rather than urbanization, nutrition or other factors.

11-May-2015 9:00 AM EDT
Did Ocean Acidification From the Asteroid Impact That Killed the Dinosaurs Cause the Extinction of Marine Molluscs?
University of Southampton

New research, led by the University of Southampton, has questioned the role played by ocean acidification, produced by the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, in the extinction of ammonites and other planktonic calcifiers 66 million years ago.

1-May-2015 10:05 AM EDT
Life Scientist Shines Light on Origin of Bioluminescence
Virginia Tech

Bioluminescence at least in one millipede may have evolved as a way to survive in a hot, dry environment, not as a means to ward off predators, according to scientists publishing in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Released: 1-May-2015 11:05 AM EDT
Species’ Evolutionary Choice: Disperse or Adapt?
Santa Fe Institute

Dispersal and adaptation are two evolutionary strategies available to species given an environment. Generalists, like dandelions, send their offspring far and wide. Specialists, like alpine flowers, adapt to the conditions of a particular place. New research models the interplay between these two strategies and shows how even minor changes in an environment can create feedback and trigger dramatic shifts in evolutionary strategy.

Released: 22-Apr-2015 8:00 AM EDT
Testosterone Key to New Bird Bang Theory
Wake Forest University

New research from a Wake Forest University biologist who studies animal behavior suggests that evolution is hard at work when it comes to the acrobatic courtship dances of a tropical bird species.

Released: 13-Apr-2015 3:05 PM EDT
Why We Have Chins
University of Iowa

Why are modern humans the only species to have chins? University of Iowa researchers say it's not due to mechanical forces, such as chewing, but may lie in our evolution: As our faces became smaller, it exposed the bony prominence at the lowest part of our heads. Results appear in the Journal of Anatomy.

1-Apr-2015 4:05 PM EDT
More Anti-inflammatory Genes Mean Longer Lifespans for Mammals
UC San Diego Health

We age in part thanks to “friendly fire” from the immune system — inflammation and chemically active molecules called reactive oxygen species that help fight infection, but also wreak molecular havoc, contributing to frailty, disability and disease. The CD33rSiglec family of proteins are known to help protect our cells from becoming inflammatory collateral damage, prompting researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine to ask whether CD33rSiglecs might help mammals live longer, too.

30-Mar-2015 1:05 PM EDT
Springing Ahead of Nature: Device Increases Walking Efficiency
North Carolina State University

It’s taken millions of years for humans to perfect the art of walking. But research results published today in the journal Nature show that humans can get better ‘gas mileage’ using an unpowered exoskeleton to modify the structure of their ankles.

26-Mar-2015 3:05 PM EDT
On the Edge of Extinction: Tiny Pupfish Go without Breathing to Survive their Harsh Environment
American Physiological Society (APS)

The endangered desert pupfish has made itself at home in the harsh, hot environment of Death Valley hot springs by using a surprising evolutionary adaptation: They can go for up to five hours without oxygen. Research will be presented at the 2015 Experimental Biology Meeting in Boston on Tuesday, March 31.



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