New but really old genetic ‘operating system’ led to evolution of complex organisms
The evolution of worms, insects, vertebrates and other “bilateral” animals — those with distinct left and right sides…
Category: Big Questions
When the Bangladesh people think the monsoon starts
You might expect that a term like “monsoon” has an agreed definition and that scientists can explain when it starts and ends. Defining…
Dinosaur–bird link Revealed By Wrist Bone Development
How this wrist bone development happened has been the subject of much debate, with substantial disagreement between developmental…
Evolutionary arms race via ancient viruses in primate evolution
New findings by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggest that an evolutionary arms race between rival elements within…
Huge galaxies grow by eating nearby smaller ones
Massive galaxies in the Universe have stopped making their own stars and are instead snacking on nearby galaxies, according to research by…
Individual human microbe community linked to education and gender
As scientists catalog the trillions of bacteria found in every nook and cranny of the human body, a new look by the University of Michigan…
Clear skies and water detected in Neptune-sized exoplanet
Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Kepler Space Telescope have discovered…
Colonization of new land drives the evolution of new hummingbird species
The first comprehensive map of hummingbirds’ 22-million-year-old family tree — reconstructed based on careful analysis of 284 of…
Diversity of lake cichlid species due to unusually high gene duplication
In an effort to understand the molecular basis of adaptation in vertebrates, researchers sequenced the genomes and transcriptomes of five…
Sloths may be slow but their body size evolved really fast
Today’s sloths might be known as slow, small animals, but their ancestors developed large body sizes at an amazing rate, according to…