Latest Evolution Stories
For 300 million years, they were the ultimate survivors. They successfully negotiated three mass extinctions, only to die out eventually at the end of the Cretaceous along with the dinosaurs: Ammonoids, or ammonites as they are also known, were marine cephalopods believed to be related to today's squid and nautiloids. Ammonoids changed their reproductive strategy early on in the course of evolution. However, what was once a successful initial strategy may well have proved to be a fatal...
Tracing the tree of life back to a single ancestral form A study published in PLoS Computational Biology maps the development of life-sustaining chemistry to the history of early life. Researchers Rogier Braakman and Eric Smith of the Santa Fe Institute traced the six methods of carbon fixation seen in modern life back to a single ancestral form. Carbon fixation – life's mechanism for making carbon dioxide biologically useful – forms the biggest bridge between Earth's non-living...
Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation and teamwork, shedding new light on the origins of what it means to be human. The study appears online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and was led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin: PhD student, Luke McNally and Assistant...
Study of simple organisms reveals preference for those who resemble themselves In a dog-eat-dog world of ruthless competition and 'survival of the fittest,' new research from the University of Leicester reveals that individuals are genetically programmed to work together and cooperate with those who most resemble themselves. A tendency for similar individuals to cooperate selectively with one another, even if they are not close relatives, can evolve spontaneously in simple organisms....
While the Tasmanian tiger was being driven to extinction in the early 20th century by territorial interlopers and government bounties, the population of the bizarre marsupial also suffered from an extreme lack of genetic diversity, according to a study published this week in PLoS ONE. The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was as large as a medium-sized dog that roamed across both Australia and Tasmania and had no natural predators. It was one of only two marsupials, along...
Evolutionary biologists at the University of Toronto have found that individuals with low-quality genes may produce offspring with even more inferior chromosomes, possibly leading to the extinction of certain species over generations. A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) predicts that organisms with such genetic deficiencies could experience an increased number of mutations in their DNA, relative to individuals with high-quality genes. The research...
Durham, NC — Physically fit frogs have faster-changing genomes, says a new study of poison frogs from Central and South America. Stretches of DNA accumulate changes over time, but the rate at which those changes build up varies considerably between species, said author Juan C. Santos of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina. In the past, biologists trying to explain why some species have faster-changing genomes than others have focused on features such...
What was old is once new again, as a new study discusses the possibility of advanced, cunning, and intelligent dinosaur-like creatures living on other planets in our universe. To add to the frightening image, the study simply concludes with the thought, "We would be better off not meeting them.” This research appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Scientist Ronald Breslow, Ph. D., author of the report, discusses an old and puzzling mystery of why the core and...
First-of-its-kind discovery used revolutionary data crunching computer program running on 48 computer processors for 4 weeks to complete 32 billion searches Analyzing massive amounts of data officially became a national priority recently when the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced the Big Data Research and Development Initiative. A multi-disciplinary team of University of Missouri researchers rose to the big data challenge when they solved a major biological...
Courtship rituals can be all-consuming, demanding time and effort – but now scientists have discovered why it might be worth it Courtship rituals can be all-consuming, demanding time and effort – but now scientists have discovered why it might be worth it. Attracting a mate – which can take significant effort, such as in a peacock's show of feathers or the exhaustive rutting of stags – can produce benefits for a species in the long term, a study suggests. Scientists have...
