Feature Channels: Evolution and Darwin

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Archaeological surveys led by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis suggest that coastal and underwater cave sites in southern Sicily contain important new clues about the path and fate of early human migrants to the island.

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An international research team led by the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna has used long-term demographic data from Japanese macaques – a monkey species within the family of Old World monkeys – to show that, unlike humans, there is no maternal mortality in these primates linked to childbirth.

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By studying rare fossils of jaws and other skull parts of a long-extinct Caribbean monkey, a team of researchers that includes a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor says it has uncovered new evidence documenting the anatomy and ecology of an extinct primate once found on Hispaniola — the Caribbean island on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located.

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The discovery of new cynodont fossils from southern Brazil by a team of palaeontologists from the University of Bristol, alongside colleagues from Argentina and Brazil, has led to a significant breakthrough in understanding the evolution of mammals.

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Fifty years ago—on November 24, 1974—only a few years after humans’ first steps on the moon, a young paleoanthropologist, Donald Johanson, walking in the dusty landscape of the Afar Rift Valley of Ethiopia discovered the first human ancestor fossil who reliably walked upright on two feet—“Lucy.”

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A new study reveals the surprisingly convergent evolution in the inner ear of mammals. An international research team led by Nicole Grunstra from the University of Vienna and Anne Le Maître from the Konrad Lorenz Institute (KLI) for Evolution and Cognition Research (Klosterneuburg) showed that a group of highly divergent mammals known as Afrotheria and distantly related, but ecologically very similar mammals independently evolved similar inner ear shapes. The study has just been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

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Glen Hood, Ph.D., assistant professor of biological sciences in Wayne State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant for his study of parasitic wasps.

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FAU has received a five-year NIH grant to further research on designing and applying statistical methods to identify regions of the genome affected by natural selection, which is an important evolutionary force that enables humans to adapt to new environments and fight disease-causing pathogens.

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New study shows how the mismatch between where fossils are preserved and where humans likely lived may influence our understanding of early human evolution.

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In infancy, caregivers rely on facial expressions and vocal cues to understand a baby's needs and emotions, as babies do not use language. A new study shows that while facial expressions are important, they are less effective than vocal and cognitive signals. Adults are more focused on a child's voice when assessing emotional states and helplessness, but use cognitive content, such as reasoning abilities, to gauge intelligence. When a child's vocal immaturity conflicts with advanced cognitive abilities, caregivers prioritize vocal cues for emotional needs and cognitive cues for intelligence, highlighting how different cues influence judgments in early childhood.

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Researchers have described some of the best-preserved three-dimensional trilobite fossils ever discovered. The fossils, which are more than 500 million years old, were collected in the High Atlas of Morocco and are being referred to by scientists as “Pompeii” trilobites due to their remarkable preservation in ash.

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New Fossil Bovids from Kromdraai shed light on South Africa's ancient ecosystems.

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Using cutting-edge computational methods and supercomputing infrastructure at UC San Diego, researchers have built the largest and most detailed bird family tree to date—an intricate chart delineating 93 million years of evolutionary relationships between 363 bird species, representing 92% of all bird families.

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A study of more than 60,000 specimens of snakes and lizards worldwide reveals that snakes stand out alone in the evolution of reptiles. The team of scientists discovered that snakes evolved incredibly fast, as their ancestors shed limbs and adapted on multiple levels to live and spread out into thousands of species of snakes over 66 million years, up to today.

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Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered.

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Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University crafted replica stone age tools and used them for a range of tasks to see how different activities create traces on the edge.

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A 280-million-year-old fossil that has baffled researchers for decades has been shown to be, in part, a forgery following new examination of the remnants.

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Our planet’s lithosphere is broken into several tectonic plates. Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to close in what is known as the Wilson cycle.