If you think summer in your hometown is hot, consider the Turkana Basin of Kenya, where the average daily temperature has reached the mid-90s or higher, year-round, for the past 4 million years. Could the climate have influenced the way humans evolved in that region?
Using notes taken by Darwin himself, GW researchers uncovered the identity of the species, Leucauge argyrobapta, which will now help taxonomists understand the complicated lineage of orb-weaving spiders.
Early religion provided humans a way to relate to each other and the world around them, offering significant survival and reproductive advantages.
Pre-humans living in East Africa 4.4 million years ago inhabited grassy plains, not forests, a team of researchers has concluded.
A mass extinction of fish 360 million years ago hit the reset button on Earth's life, setting the stage for modern vertebrate biodiversity, a new study reports. The mass extinction scrambled the species pool near the time at which the first vertebrates crawled from water towards land, University of Chicago scientists report.
Biologists have been able to change the brain of a developing fish embryo to resemble that of another species.
A multicellular green alga, Volvox carteri, may have finally unlocked the secrets behind the evolution of different sexes. A team led by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has shown that the genetic region that determines sex in Volvox has changed dramatically relative to that of the closely related unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.
Biologists long have known that both the appearance of organisms and their inner workings are shaped by evolution. But do the same genetic mechanisms underlie changes in form and function? A new study by scientists at the University of Michigan and Taiwan's National Health Research Institutes suggests not.
In a paper to appear in the May issue of American Naturalist, paleontologists explore how the ecological information provided by fossil assemblages is determined by their process of accumulation.
Which creationist was the most nauseating?
A fossil that was celebrated last year as a possible "missing link" between humans and early primates is actually a forebearer of modern-day lemurs and lorises, according to two papers by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin, Duke University and the University of Chicago.
Science deniers, creationists, and their fellow travelers aren't just targeting evolution. Now they're turning their sights on global warming.
Twenty billion pieces of DNA in 100 small fish have opened the eyes of biologists studying evolution. After combining new technologies, researchers now know many of the genomic regions that allowed an ocean-dwelling fish to adapt to fresh water in several independently evolved populations.
"Friends of Darwin" take center stage.
Higher intelligence is associated with liberal political ideology, atheism, and men’s (but not women’s) preference for sexual exclusivity. More intelligent people are statistically more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences novel human evolutionary history.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have peered deep into the eye of the chicken and found a masterpiece of biological design. Scientists discovered that receptors were laid out in interwoven mosaics that maximized the chicken's ability to see color.
Bees prefer nectar with small amounts of nicotine and caffeine over nectar that does not comprise these substances at all, a study from the University of Haifa reveals. "This could be an evolutionary development intended, as in humans, to make the bee addicted," states Prof. Ido Izhaki, one of the researchers who conducted the study.
In the natural stream communities of Trinidad, guppy populations live close together, but evolve differently. Upstream, fewer predators mean more guppies but less food for each; they grow slowly and larger, reproduce later and less, and die older. Downstream, where predators thrive, guppies eat more, grow rapidly, stay small, reproduce quickly and die younger.
Male homosexuality doesn’t make complete sense from an evolutionary point of view. One possible explanation is what evolutionary psychologists call the “kin selection hypothesis.” Homosexuality may convey an indirect benefit by enhancing the survival prospects of close relatives.
The nectar of the almond tree produces an extraordinary and dangerous poison. This is the only known plant to have this poison in its flowers' nectar. A study carried out at the University of Haifa has revealed that bees are mysteriously drawn to the toxic substance.
During the Paleozoic era, the evolution of complex land plants forced the evolution of rivers from nothing but vast braided streams to the variety of different forms and sizes we see today according to researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The first comprehensive comparison of Y chromosomes from two species sheds new light on Y chromosome evolution. Contrary to a widely held scientific theory that the mammalian Y chromosome is slowly decaying or stagnating, new evidence suggests that in fact the Y is continuously reinventing itself.
Fossils may provide tantalizing clues to human history but they also lack some vital information, such as revealing which pieces of human DNA have been favored by evolution because they confer beneficial traits — resistance to infection or the ability to digest milk, for example. Now, researchers describe a method for pinpointing these preferred regions that offers greater precision and resolution than ever before, and the possibility of deeply understanding both our genetic past and present.
University of Utah biologists found that finches – the birds Darwin studied – develop antibodies against two parasites that moved to the Galapagos Islands, suggesting the birds can fight the alien invaders.
An international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, professor of Anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis, has reanalyzed the complete immature dentition of a 30,000 year-old-child from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal. The new analysis of the Lagar Velho child shows that these “early modern humans” were “modern” without being “fully modern.”
Darwin celebrated; evolution still under attack. The Year in Review.
The timing of molar emergence and its relation to growth and reproduction in apes is being reported by scientists at Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins. “We can use the same techniques to calculate ages at first molar emergence from the fossils of early hominids that just happened to die while their first molars were erupting,” they say.
Research on communication in animals helps understand of how language develops in humans and how they use it. Language is a phenomenon of evolutionary biology.
A new study provides credence to the understanding that asexual reproduction allows for the ongoing accumulation and replication of harmful mutations, leaving less room for adaptation to rapidly changing environments.
Genes that don’t themselves directly affect the inherited characteristics of an organism but leave them increasingly open to variation may be a significant driving force of evolution, say two Johns Hopkins scientists.
Name all the venomous animals you can think of and you probably come up with snakes, spiders, bees, wasps and perhaps poisonous frogs. But catfish?
Ancient DNA retrieved from extinct horse species from around the world has challenged one of the textbook examples of evolution – the fossil record of the horse family Equidae over the past 55 million years.
Female birds in species that breed in groups can find themselves under pressure to sexually show off and evolve the same kinds of embellishments – like fanciful tail feathers or chest-puffing courtship dances - as males, according to new research in the latest issue of Nature (Dec. 10, 2009).
NCSE is shifting its primary domain to ncse.com.
Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that honeybees can discriminate between food at different temperatures, an ability that may assist bees in locating the warm, sugar-rich nectar or high-protein pollen produced by many flowers.
NCSE responds to creationist edition of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species."
If humans are genetically related to chimps, why did our brains develop the innate ability for language and speech while theirs did not? Scientists suspect that part of the answer to the mystery lies in a gene called FOXP2. When mutated, FOXP2 can disrupt speech and language in humans. Now, a UCLA/Emory study reveals major differences between how the human and chimp versions of FOXP2 work, perhaps explaining why language is unique to humans.
A study published this week in PNAS provides a comprehensive comparative functional anatomy study in human and monkey brains which reveals highly similar brain networks preserved across evolution.
NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott takes aim at creationist Ray Comfort's distorted views on evolution in a debate taking place on the U.S. News & World Report site.
Spend a little time people-watching at the beach and you're bound to notice differences in the amount, thickness and color of people's body hair. Then head to the zoo and compare people to chimps, our closest living relatives.
A scientific analysis of a recently discovered adapiform, an ancient primate, reveals that the fossil, called Afradapis, is not on the evolutionary lineage of anthropoids (Old World Monkeys and higher primates, including humans) but instead more closely to lemurs and lorises.
OK, it takes two for human reproduction, and now it seems that plants and animals that can rely on either a partner or go alone by self-fertilization give their offspring a better chance for longer lives when they opt for a mate.
"Darwin's Golden Retriever" Dr. Eugenie Scott has received the California Academy of Sciences' highest honor: the Fellows Medal.
Standing out in a crowd is better than blending in, at least if you're a paper wasp in a colony where fights between nest-mates determine social status.
The NCSE's Dr. Eugenie Scott has received the California Academy of Sciences' highest honor: the Fellows Medal.
A new investigation of a fossilized tracksite in southern Africa shows how early dinosaurs made on-the-fly adjustments to their movements to cope with slippery and sloping terrain. Differences in how early dinosaurs made these adjustments provide insight into the later evolution of the group.
The UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA), an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego, today announced the launch of its online Museum of Comparative Anthropogeny (MOCA), available at http://carta.anthropogeny.org/moca/about.
University of Maryland biologists have genetically mapped the sex chromosomes of several species of cichlid (pronounced "sick-lid") fish from Lake Malawi, East Africa, and identified a mechanism by which new sex chromosomes may evolve.
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Associate Professor Lee Meadows, Ph.D., is author of a new book , "The Missing Link: An Inquiry Approach for Teaching All Students About Evolution," that claims it’s possible to teach evolution without offending students who have strong religious convictions against the theory.
GSA Past President Judith Totman Parrish has named Judge John E. Jones, III, as the 2009 recipient of GSA’s prestigious President's Medal. Parrish will present the award at the GSA Annual Meeting Presidential Address & Awards Ceremony on Saturday, 17 October, at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Jones will also participate in a 5-member panel discussion at the meeting, on Monday, 19 October, during “Darwin Day,” a 200th birthday celebration of Charles Darwin.
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