http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Genetic parasites invaded the mammalian genome more than 100 million years ago and dramatically changed the way mammals reproduce -- transforming the uterus in the ancestors of humans and other mammals from the production of eggs to a nurturing home for developing young, a new Yale University study has found. http://phys.org/news236175398.html Biology Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:16:47 EST news236175398 (PhysOrg.com) -- Seemingly simple animals such as the snail and squid have ransacked the genetic toolkit over the last half billion years to find different ways to build complex brains, nervous systems and shells, according to an international team of researchers, including a neuroscientist with the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience. http://phys.org/news235291156.html Biology Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:39:41 EST news235291156 A team of Ugandan and French paleontologists announced Tuesday they had found a 20-million-year-old ape skull in northeastern Uganda, saying it could shed light on the region's evolutionary history. http://phys.org/news231498821.html Other Sciences Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:50:04 EST news231498821 (PhysOrg.com) -- Fossils of leaves, flowers, fruits and buds found in Patagonia, Argentina, have been identified as Eucalyptus and date to 51.9 million years ago, making them the oldest scientifically validated Eucalyptus macrofossils and the only ones conclusively identified as naturally occurring outside of Australasia. http://phys.org/news230280994.html Other Sciences Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:57:19 EST news230280994 Polar bears' unique characteristics allow them to survive in one of the most extreme environments on Earth, but that survival is now threatened as rising temperatures and melting ice reshape the Arctic landscape. Now it appears that the stress of climate change, occurring both long ago and today, may be responsible for surprising twists in the bears' history and future as well. http://phys.org/news229261976.html Biology Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:53:14 EST news229261976 New research from Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies is helping unravel the evolutionary history of the iconic tyrannosaurid dinosaurs, according to MSU scientists who reviewed past findings about a small dinosaur from Asia. http://phys.org/news228636105.html Other Sciences Thu, 30 Jun 2011 07:03:11 EST news228636105 (PhysOrg.com) -- CSIRO research has revealed that the tremendous diversity of ladybird beetle species is linked to their ability to produce larvae which, with impunity, poach members of 'herds' of tiny, soft-bodied scale insects from under the noses of the aggressive ants that tend them. http://phys.org/news228123086.html Biology Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:31:40 EST news228123086 Controlling water loss is an important ability for modern land plants as it helps them thrive in changing environments. New research from the University of Bristol, published today in the journal Current Biology, shows that water conserving innovations occurred very early in plants' evolutionary history. http://phys.org/news226844682.html Biology Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:49:21 EST news226844682 A European research team, with Spanish participation, has described two new beetle species measuring two millimetres in length. The coleoptera (beetles) were found in streams in the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees mountains (from Gipuzkoa to Girona) and in the Sierra de la Demanda mountains (Burgos). Experts had previously thought that they belonged to another European species. http://phys.org/news226057669.html Biology Tue, 31 May 2011 10:48:15 EST news226057669 A team from Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, is using genomics to shed light on the early evolutionary history of sex chromosomes. The research is published in the April 2011 Eukaryotic Cell. http://phys.org/news224845997.html Biology Tue, 17 May 2011 10:13:31 EST news224845997 However, one of the most well-known characteristics of yeast is the ability of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, baker's yeast, to ferment sugar to 2-carbon components, in particular ethanol, without completely oxidising it to carbon dioxide, even in the presence of oxygen, as many other microbes do. This fermentative ability is essential for the production of wine, beer and many other alcoholic beverages. http://phys.org/news224329129.html Biology Wed, 11 May 2011 10:42:17 EST news224329129 (PhysOrg.com) -- Rice originated in China, a team of genome researchers has concluded in a study tracing back thousands of years of evolutionary history through large-scale gene re-sequencing. Their findings, which appear in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), indicate that domesticated rice may have first appeared as far back as approximately 9,000 years ago in the Yangtze Valley of China. Previous research suggested domesticated rice may have two points of origin -- India as well as China. http://phys.org/news223566988.html Biology Mon, 02 May 2011 15:00:11 EST news223566988 A team of scientists has combined embryological observations, genetic sequencing, and supercomputing to determine that a group of small disk-shaped animals that were once thought to represent a new class of animals are actually starfish that have lost the large star-shaped, adult body from their life cycle. http://phys.org/news223557024.html Biology Mon, 02 May 2011 12:10:38 EST news223557024 (PhysOrg.com) -- Invasive species cost more than $100 billion a year in damages in the United States, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. While most researchers attribute their success to a lack of natural predators in their new territory, Cornell researchers offer proof for a less popular explanation: Invasive species fare so well in their new digs because their host species lack an evolutionary history with -- and defenses against -- the new invaders, making the hosts especially vulnerable to attack. http://phys.org/news221815510.html Biology Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:25:33 EST news221815510 A new study louses up a popular theory of animal evolution and opens up the possibility that dinosaurs were early – perhaps even the first – animal hosts of lice. http://phys.org/news221279652.html Other Sciences Wed, 06 Apr 2011 03:34:21 EST news221279652 "Even the wide interval between birds and reptiles has been shown by the naturalist to be partially bridged over in the most unexpected manner, on the one hand, by the ostrich and extinct Archeopteryx, and on the other hand, by the Compsognathus, one of the Dinosaurians". - Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, 1872. http://phys.org/news221221651.html Other Sciences Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:27:49 EST news221221651 The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership team in Georgia made an exciting discovery in October last year when local nature lovers alerted the team to the presence of cyclamen in a district in West Georgia. http://phys.org/news220190006.html Biology Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:53:38 EST news220190006 (PhysOrg.com) -- Some may think that the mosquito and the house fly are worlds apart when it comes to common ancestry but new research published this week by an international team of scientists puts them much closer together in evolutionary history. http://phys.org/news220091827.html Biology Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:38:07 EST news220091827 Calling it the "new periodic table for flies," researchers at North Carolina State University and collaborators across the globe have mapped the evolutionary history of flies, providing a framework for further comparative studies on the insects that comprise more than 10 percent of all life on Earth. http://phys.org/news219325603.html Biology Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:00:53 EST news219325603 An Ohio State University molecular biologist leveraged a supercomputer to help better define the family tree of a group of enzymes that have been implicated in a wide range of human diseases and are important targets for anti-cancer therapies. http://phys.org/news218810217.html Biology Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:37:21 EST news218810217 In the mating game, some female mites are mightier than their mates, new research at the University of Michigan and the Russian Academy of Sciences suggests. The evidence comes, in part, from 40 million-year-old mating mites preserved in Baltic amber. http://phys.org/news218135311.html Biology Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:00:07 EST news218135311 With the genetics of so many organisms that have different traits yet to study, and with the techniques for gathering full sets of genetic information from organisms rapidly evolving, the "forest" of evolution can be easily lost to the "trees" of each individual case and detail. http://phys.org/news217782793.html Biology Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:13:30 EST news217782793 Leafcutter ants, signature denizens of New World tropical forests, are unique in their ability to harvest fresh leaves to cultivate a nutrient-rich fungus as food. http://phys.org/news216584142.html Biology Thu, 10 Feb 2011 18:16:01 EST news216584142 An ambitious hunt by Johns Hopkins scientists for actively "jumping genes" in humans has yielded compelling new evidence that the genome, anything but static, contains numerous pesky mobile elements that may help to explain why people have such a variety of physical traits and disease risks. http://phys.org/news216061858.html Medicine & Health Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:11:15 EST news216061858 A mathematically driven evolutionary snapshot of woody plants in four similar climates around the world has given scientists a fresh perspective on genetic diversity and threats posed by both extinctions and loss of habitat. http://phys.org/news211729597.html Biology Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:47:18 EST news211729597 (PhysOrg.com) -- The astonishing similarity in the appearance of embryos from different animal species was observed as far back as the 19th century by scientists such as Karl von Baer, Charles Darwin and Ernst Haeckel. Such observations prompted the hypothesis that the individual development of an organism reflects its evolutionary history or phylogeny. Two groups of scientists, including researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics in Dresden and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, have now succeeded in demonstrating, for the first time, that parallels exist between individual development and phylogeny on the level of gene expression. (Nature, December 9, 2010) http://phys.org/news211658325.html Biology Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:20:01 EST news211658325 (PhysOrg.com) -- Marsupial predators are not the poor cousins of the carnivore world, as has long been thought: new research shows that they have been just as diverse as placental carnivores over time. http://phys.org/news209812313.html Other Sciences Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:12:22 EST news209812313 (PhysOrg.com) -- Over millions of years dogs have developed bigger brains than cats because highly social species of mammals need more brain power than solitary animals, according to a study by Oxford University. http://phys.org/news209750205.html Biology Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:57:07 EST news209750205 Massey University's newest Maori PhD, Simon Hills, has taken shell collecting to a new level. http://phys.org/news209744731.html Biology Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:26:45 EST news209744731 Understanding the evolution of life-threatening viruses like influenza, Ebola and dengue fever, could help us to minimize their impact. New research points the way to a fossil record of viruses that have insinuated themselves into the genomes of insects and other animals, providing clues about their evolutionary history. http://phys.org/news209326000.html Biology Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:06:53 EST news209326000