A team of engineers and biologists reports new progress in using computer modeling and 3D shape analysis to understand how the unique grasping tails of seahorses evolved. These prehensile tails combine the seemingly contradictory characteristics of flexibility and rigidity, and knowing how seahorses accomplish this feat could help engineers create devices that are both flexible and strong.
Rodents infected with a common parasite lose their fear of cats, resulting in easy meals for the felines. Now IU School of Medicine researchers have identified a new way the parasite may modify brain cells, possibly helping explain changes in the behavior of mice -- and humans.
A new study by University of Michigan biologists suggests that some predatory marine cone snails evolved a highly diverse set of venoms that enables them to capture and paralyze a broad range of prey species
Over 1,500 scientists from 30 countries and 46 states will attend next week's 56th Annual Drosophila Research Conference organized by the Genetics Society of America (GSA), March 4–8 in Chicago, IL. The conference will feature close to 1,000 presentations (including 170 talks) describing cutting-edge research on genetics, developmental biology, cancer, stem cells, neurology, epigenetics, genetic disease, aging, immunity, behavior, drug discovery, and technology. It is the largest meeting in the world that brings together researchers who use the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to study biology.
Tropical turtle fossils discovered in Wyoming by University of Florida scientists reveal that when the earth got warmer, prehistoric turtles headed north. But if today’s turtles try the same technique to cope with warming habitats, they might run into trouble.
That humans and our cities build affect the ecosystem and even drive some evolutionary change is already known. What's new is that these evolutionary changes are happening more quickly than previously thought, and have potential impacts on ecosystem function on a contemporary scale. Not in the distant future, that is -- but now.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- It’s hard to hide from a bat: The camouflage and mimicry techniques that animals use to avoid becoming a meal aren’t much use against a predator using echolocation. But a new study shows that moths can outsmart sonar with a flick of their long tails.
A University of Michigan-led study of penguin genetics has concluded that the flightless aquatic birds lost three of the five basic vertebrate tastes—sweet, bitter and the savory, meaty taste known as umami—more than 20 million years ago and never regained them.
The fossils of two interrelated ancestral mammals, newly discovered in China, suggest that the wide-ranging ecological diversity of modern mammals had a precedent more than 160 million years ago.
Using theoretical and experimental approaches, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have developed a two-pronged strategy that uses an evolving cell population’s adaptive nature against it.
A new Santa Fe Institute study by Paul Hooper and collaborators details the intergenerational food sharing in a society of Amazon forager-farmers and shows that differences in relative need determine contributions to children from parents, grandparents, and other kin.
Turns out we may have more in common with crocodiles than we'd ever dream. According to research by a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, crocodiles think surfing waves, playing ball and going on piggyback rides are fun, too.
Evolutionary researchers have determined that settling for “Mr. Okay” is a better evolutionary strategy than waiting for “Mr. Perfect.” When studying the evolution of risk aversion Michigan State University researchers found that it is in our nature – traced back to the earliest humans – to take the safe bet when stakes are high, such as whether or not we will mate.
Computers are able to use monkey facial patterns not only to correctly identify species, but also distinguish individuals within species, a team of scientists has found. Their findings, which rely on computer algorithms to identify guenon monkeys, suggest that machine learning can be a tool in studying evolution and help to identify the factors that have led to facial differentiation in monkey evolution.
Researchers from Africa, North America and Europe have published a road map on how future evolutionary research and education efforts in Central African forests can guide conservation strategies and actions.
Researchers have discovered that genetic variations associated with some modern maladies are extremely old, predating the evolution of Neanderthals, Denisovans (another ancient hominin) and contemporary humans.
University of Adelaide researchers have made a surprising discovery in the aquifers beneath the Western Australian desert, which challenges the traditional Darwinian view of evolution.
Say “primate” and most people wouldn’t think of a tree-dwelling, squirrel-like creature that weighs no more than a deck of playing cards, but a new study suggests that may perfectly describe humans’ earliest primate ancestors.
Paleontologist Sterling Nesbitt's latest addition to the paleontological vernacular is Nundasuchus, a 9-foot-long carnivorous reptile with steak knifelike teeth and bony plates on the back.
Some cone snails add insulin to the venom cocktail they use to catch fish, University of Utah biologists have discovered. Adding the hormone to the mix of venom toxins may have enabled predatory cone snails to disable entire schools of swimming fish with hypoglycemic shock. The snail insulin could prove useful as a tool to probe the systems the human body uses to control blood sugar and energy metabolism.
Scientists have finally managed to extract DNA from Australia's extinct giant kangaroos ─ the mysterious marsupial megafauna that roamed Australia over 40,000 years ago.
A multi-purpose bone tool dating from the Neanderthal era has been discovered by University of Montreal researchers, throwing into question our current understanding of the evolution of human behaviour. It was found at an archaeological site in France.
Venom from an eastern diamondback rattlesnake in the Everglades is distinct from the cocktail of toxins delivered by the same species in the Florida panhandle area, some 500 miles away. But no matter where you go in the Southeastern United States, the venom of the eastern coral snake is always the same. The results of a large-scale survey of venom variation in the two snake species, published January 8, 2015 in the journal GENETICS, challenge common assumptions in venom evolution research, provide crucial information for rattlesnake conservation, and will help coral snake antivenom development.
New research shows rapid evolution has helped to make the venom of black widow spiders so toxic. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 6, 2015.
New research on bioluminescent ostracods shows how tiny crustaceans are helping scientists to understand evolution by sexual selection. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 5, 2015.
New research shows that being monogamous is an advantage for mantis shrimp, helping them to avoid predators. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 4, 2015.
New research shows that flashes of light from an unusual clam help it to fend off predators and perhaps to attract prey. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 4, 2015.
New research shows rapid evolution has helped to make the venom of black widow spiders so toxic. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 4, 2015.
The distinctive “fecal prints” of microbes potentially provide a record of how Earth and life have co-evolved over the past 3.5 billion years as the planet’s temperature, oxygen levels, and greenhouse gases have changed. But, despite more than 60 years of study, it has proved difficult, until now, to “read” much of the information contained in this record.
Efforts to connect the evolutionary transition from fish fins to wrist and fingers with the genetic machinery for this adaptation have fallen short because they focused on the wrong fish. Now, researchers describe the genetic machinery for autopod assembly in a non-model fish, the spotted gar.
New research shows that modern human skeletons evolved into their lightly built form only relatively recently — after the start of the Holocene about 12,000 years ago, and even more recently in some human populations. The work, based on high-resolution imaging of bone joints from modern humans and chimpanzees as well as from fossils of extinct human species, shows that for millions of years, extinct humans had high bone density until a dramatic decrease in recent modern humans.
The majority of RNA expression differences between individuals have no connection to the abundance of a corresponding protein, report scientists from the University of Chicago in Science. The results point to a yet-unidentified gene regulatory mechanism.
A newly published study involving the University of Iowa finds crows have the brain power to solve higher‐order, relational‐matching tasks, and they can do so spontaneously. That means crows join humans, apes and monkeys in exhibiting advanced relational thinking, according to the research.
Examination of DNA from 21 primate species – from squirrel monkeys to humans – exposes an evolutionary war against infectious bacteria over iron that circulates in the host’s bloodstream. Supported by experimental evidence, these findings, published in Science on Dec. 12, demonstrate the vital importance of an increasingly appreciated defensive strategy called nutritional immunity.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Nature abhors a vacuum, which may explain the findings of a new study showing that bird evolution exploded 65 million years ago when nearly everything else on earth -- dinosaurs included -- died out.
Researchers have developed a method for spying on the activity of every gene within a cell at once. The breakthrough allows them to determine the order in which the three layers of cells in animal embryos evolved. Other applications include cancer research.
Learning from others and innovation have undoubtedly helped advance civilization. But these behaviours can carry costs as well as benefits. And a new study by an international team of evolutionary biologists sheds light on how one particular cost – increased exposure to parasites – may affect cultural evolution in non-human primates.
Charles Darwin noted more than 150 years ago that animals on the Galapagos Islands, including finches and marine iguanas, were more docile than mainland creatures. He attributed this tameness to the fact that there are fewer predators on remote islands.
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers are taking a unique approach to understanding and investigating cancer by utilizing evolutionary principles and computational modeling to examine the role of specific genetic mutations in the Darwinian struggle among tumor and normal cells during cancer growth.
Working at the edge of a coal mine in India, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers and colleagues have filled in a major gap in science’s understanding of the evolution of a group of animals that includes horses and rhinos. That group likely originated on the subcontinent when it was still an island headed swiftly for collision with Asia, the researchers report Nov. 20 in the online journal Nature Communications.
Biologists long assumed that one-way air flow was a special adaptation in birds driven by the intense energy demands of flight. But now University of Utah scientists have shown that bird-like breathing also developed in green iguanas – reptiles not known for high-capacity aerobic fitness. The finding bolsters the case that unidirectional bird-like flow evolved long before the first birds.
A University of Utah study of two African tribes found evidence that men evolved better navigation ability than women because men with better spatial skills – the ability to mentally manipulate objects – can roam farther and have children with more mates.
A new study by an international team of researchers that includes a Texas A&M University anthropologist shows that the modern European and East Asian populations were firmly established by 36,000 years ago, and that Neanderthal and modern human interbreeding occurred much earlier.
A newly discovered 66–70 million-year-old groundhog-like creature, massive in size compared to other mammals of its era, provides new and important insights into early mammalian evolution.
New research shows that rhesus monkeys appear to have a sense of self-agency, or the ability to understand that they caused something to happen. This finding sheds light on the evolution of self-recognition and self-awareness in humans.
An exhaustive effort to sequence the mouse Y chromosome reveals a surprisingly large and complex biological beast, at the same time providing remarkable insight into a heated battle for supremacy between mammalian sex chromosomes.
Joe Bailey looked at endemic eucalyptus found in Tasmania. They discovered that these rare species have developed unique characteristics to survive, and that these characteristics may also impact the survival of its neighbors in the ecosystem.
Mimicking natural evolution in a test tube, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have devised an enzyme with a unique property that might have been crucial to the origin of life on Earth.
In a discovery new to science, research from the University of Vermont shows that sexual conflict between two ant species can drive an evolutionary battle, leading to competing adaptations in which female ants of one species manhandle sperm away from the unwitting males of a different species.
Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have discovered a new reproductive mode in frogs and toads - breeding and laying direct developing eggs in live bamboo with narrow openings - which was observed in the white spotted bush frog (Raorchestes chalazodes). This critically endangered frog is currently only one of two species known to adopt this novel reproductive strategy. The findings were published in The Linnean Society of London’s Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, in October 2014.
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