Feature Channels: Evolution and Darwin

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Believed critical for determining which individuals can -- or cannot -- successfully reproduce with each other, genitalia not only figure prominently in the origin of new species, but are also typically the first type of trait to change as new species form. Today, new international research led by Indiana University shows that as populations and species diversify, the exact shape and fit of genitalia steals the show over size.

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An international team of researchers studying sound production in perch-like fishes has discovered a link between two unrelated lineages of fishes, taking researchers a step closer to understanding the evolution of one of the fastest muscles in vertebrates.

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Throughout the interior spaces of humans and other warm-blooded creatures is a special type of tissue known as brown fat, which may hold the secret to diets and weight-loss programs of the future.

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Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have found the first direct evidence that an acquired trait can be inherited without any DNA involvement. The findings suggest that Lamarck, whose theory of evolution was eclipsed by Darwin’s, may not have been entirely wrong. The study is slated to appear in the December 9 issue of Cell.

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Much of our knowledge about past life has come from the fossil record – but how accurately does that reflect the true history and drivers of biodiversity on Earth?

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A new study involving bat skulls, bite force measurements and fecal samples collected by an international team of evolutionary biologists is helping to solve a nagging question of evolution: Why some groups of animals evolve scores of different species over time while others evolve only a few. Their findings appear in the current issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

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Guppies in the wild have evolved over at least half-a-million years — long enough for the males' coloration to have changed dramatically. Yet a characteristic orange patch on male guppies has remained remarkably stable, though it could have become redder or more yellow. Why has it stayed the same hue of orange over such a long period of time?

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Natural selection has played a role in the development of the many skins patterns of the tiny Ranitomeya imitator poison dart frog.

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If not for an observant Italian stonecutter, a recently discovered fossil whale specimen from Egypt might have become part of the edifice of some new skyscraper rather than the focus of a scientific study. This fossil skull and partial rib cage show transitional features of a new species of early whale and hint at how it became a fossil in the first place.

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Unusual features of the human placenta may be the underlying cause of postpartum hemorrhage, the leading cause of maternal deaths during childbirth, according to evolutionary research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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DNA sequences for human and chimpanzees are nearly indentical, despite vast phenotypical differences between the two species. Georgia Tech researchers have determined that the insertion and deletion of large pieces of DNA near genes are highly variable between humans and chimpanzees and may account for these major differences.

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While most studies have concluded that a cold climate led to the short lower legs typical of Neandertals, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that lower leg lengths shorter than the typical modern human’s let them move more efficiently over the mountainous terrain where they lived. The findings reveal a broader trend relating shorter lower leg length to mountainous environments that may help explain the limb proportions of many different animals.

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Young genes that appeared since the primates split from other mammal species are expressed in unique structures of the developing human brain, a new analysis finds. The correlation suggests that scientists studying the evolution of the human brain should look to genes considered recent by evolutionary standards and early stages of brain development.

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A new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that cardiovascular disease may be an unfortunate consequence of mammalian evolution.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say that losing the ability to make a particular kind of sugar molecule boosted disease protection in early hominids, and may have directed the evolutionary emergence of our ancestors, the genus Homo.

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It's "Waterworld" snail style: Ocean-dwelling snails that spend most of their lives floating upside down, attached to rafts of mucus bubbles.

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Researcher Alice Gibb of Northern Arizona University and her team have found that some fully aquatic fishes can jump effectively on land, which has significant implications for evolutional biology.

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Researchers find ENaC’s appearance on eukaryotic family tree coincides with turning point in evolution—the emergence of the first multicellular creatures.

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A University of Iowa-led team of paleoanthropologists from the UI and the Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia has shed new light on the nature of Ice Age human evolution in Asia.

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A new study found that genes involved in creating different sexes, life stages and castes of fire ants and honeybees evolved more rapidly than genes not involved in these processes. The fast-evolving genes also exhibited elevated rates of evolution before they were recruited for development.

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Call a bird “birdbrained” and they may call “fowl.” Cornell University researchers have proven that the capacity for learning in birds is not linked to overall brain size, but to the relative size and proportion of their specific brain regions.

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A new paper, building on recent advances in sequencing capability, now reports the complete genomes of 17 different strains of mice, creating an unparalleled genetic resource that will aid studies ranging from human disease to evolution.

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Research conducted by a team of biological scientists published in PLoS ONE suggests that conservation biologists and managers should consider the prospect that populations transferred to new environments might rapidly evolve and foil original management plans. Study results raise the question of whether current biological conservation practices should take into account the possibility of contemporary evolution, to increase the chances of species survival from extinction.

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Skewed skulls may have helped early whales discriminate the direction of sounds in water and are not solely, as previously thought, a later adaptation related to echolocation. University of Michigan researchers report the finding in a paper to be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of Aug. 22.

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UMDNJ scientists demonstrate that the origin of some traits during evolution result from developmental bias rather than from natural selection.

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From hot pink to traditional French and Lady Gaga’s sophisticated designs, manicured nails have become the grammar of fashion.

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A relatively simple combination of naturally occurring sugars and amino acids offers a plausible route to the building blocks of life, according to a paper published in Nature Chemistry co-authored by a professor at the University of California, Merced. The study shows how the precursors to RNA could have formed on Earth before any life existed, and it builds on the work of John D. Sutherland and Matthew W. Powner, published in 2009.

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Life is tough for woodrats in deserts. The few food plants produce poison. A new University of Utah study shows how some woodrats put themselves on a diet to avoid poisoning: They eat smaller meals, increase time between meals and drink more water if it is available.

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University of Utah scientists used chemical isotopes in ancient soil to measure prehistoric tree cover – in effect, shade – and found that grassy, tree-dotted savannas prevailed at most East African sites where human ancestors and their ape relatives evolved during the past 6 million years.

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An international study, based on a doctoral thesis conducted at the University of Haifa, has discovered how a newly discovered gene played a central role in the transition of aquatic plants to land plants – a process that led to life on land as we know it today.

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Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa.

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New fossil localities from North Dakota and Montana have produced the remains of a turtle that survived the 65 million-year-old meteorite impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.

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Genetic instructions for developing limbs and digits were present in primitive fish millions of years before their descendants first crawled on to land, University of Chicago researchers have discovered. The result suggests that the recipe for limb development is conserved in species separated by 400 million years of evolution.

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After living incognito for millions of years in a remote area of a forested mountain range in the Philippines, seven newfound species of mice owe their recent discovery to DNA evidence and the Florida State University biologist who deciphered it.

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By mapping various genomes onto an X-Y axis, a team comprised mostly of Kansas State University researchers has found that Charles Darwin and a fruit fly -- among other organisms -- have a lot in common genetically.

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Palaeontologists have uncovered half-a-billion-year-old fossils demonstrating that primitive animals had excellent vision. An international team led by scientists from the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide found the exquisite fossils, which look like squashed eyes from a recently swatted fly.

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A recent Kavli Futures Symposium focused on the progress, and promise, of evolving biological functions in the lab. Now, three Symposium participants discuss this remarkable research, and how it's drawing together diverse scientific fields.

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Biologists worldwide subscribe to the healthy herds hypothesis, but could it be that predators can also make prey populations more susceptible to other predators or even parasites? Biologists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered at least one animal whose defenses against a predator make it a good target for one opportunistic parasite.

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New research shows that in some structured communities, organisms increase their chances of survival if they evolve some level of restraint that allows competitors to survive as well, a sort of “survival of the weakest.”

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A University of Arkansas professor and his colleagues have found the first direct evidence in the fossil record that Homo erectus ate a more diverse diet than its relative Homo habilis.

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A new study provides support for Darwin’s hypothesis that the struggle for existence is stronger between more closely related species. While ecologists generally accept the premise, this new study contains the strongest direct experimental evidence yet to support its validity.

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In “The Evidence for Evolution,” University of Utah anthropologist Alan R. Rogers tries to lay to rest persistent and inaccurate anti-evolution arguments with scientific evidence that was unavailable in Charles Darwin’s day.

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In his new book, 'First Life,' biochemist David Deamer presents an engaging and accessible overview of research into life's beginnings and a personal history of his work in this field.

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In the first analysis of how warning coloration evolved in carnivores, researchers explain why some species use bold coloration to warn predators that they risk being sprayed with stinky gas or getting into a vicious fight, while others do not. Results are in the current online issue of Evolution.

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A DNA-based study sheds new light on the complex evolutionary history of the woolly mammoth, suggesting it mated with a completely different and much larger species. The research, which appears in the BioMed Central’s open access journal Genome Biology, found the woolly mammoth, which lived in the cold climate of the Arctic tundra, interbred with the Columbian mammoth, which preferred the more temperate regions of North America and was some 25 per cent larger.

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A University of Utah study shows that men hit hardest when they stand on two legs and punch downward, giving tall, upright males a fighting advantage. This may help explain why our ape-like human ancestors began walking upright and why women tend to prefer tall men.

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A new comparison of proteins shared across species finds that complex organisms, including humans, have accumulated structural weaknesses that may have actually launched the long journey from microbe to man. The study, published in Nature, suggests that the random introduction of errors into proteins, rather than traditional natural selection, may have boosted the evolution of biological complexity.

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There’s a reason to be afraid of the dark. Fish accustomed to living near the light of the water’s surface become proverbial “fish out of water” when they move to dark environments like caves, according to a study from North Carolina State University.

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Evolution is providing the inspiration for University of Adelaide computer science research to find the best placement of turbines to increase wind farm productivity.

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For more than two hundred years, the question of why there are more species in the tropics has been a biological enigma.