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. A new paper by a team of researchers led by University of Notre Dame biologist Jeffrey Feder could herald an important shift in thinking about the genomics of speciation. http://phys.org/news192726206.html Biology Mon, 10 May 2010 16:03:43 EST news192726206 (PhysOrg.com) -- By using entire islands as experimental laboratories, two Dartmouth biologists have performed one of the largest manipulations of natural selection ever conducted in a wild animal population. Their results, published online on May 9 by the journal Nature, show that competition among lizards is more important than predation by birds and snakes when it comes to survival of the fittest lizard. http://phys.org/news192715886.html Biology Mon, 10 May 2010 13:50:01 EST news192715886 The density of transposable (jumping) elements between sex chromosomes in primates may have important consequences for the studies of human genetic diseases, say Penn State University researchers. http://phys.org/news191752291.html Biology Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:31:53 EST news191752291 Scientists have discovered "striking similarities" between human brains, the nervous system of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and computer chips. http://phys.org/news191167208.html Biology Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:00:33 EST news191167208 Researchers have discovered that infants respond to the rhythm and tempo of music and find it more engaging than speech. http://phys.org/news187878764.html Medicine & Health Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:00:16 EST news187878764 (PhysOrg.com) -- Two Dartmouth biologists have found that brown anole lizards make an interesting choice when deciding which males should father their offspring. The females of this species mate with several males, then produce more sons with sperm from large fathers, and more daughters with sperm from smaller fathers. The researchers believe that the lizards do this to ensure that the genes from large fathers are passed on to sons, who stand to benefit from inheriting the genes for large size. http://phys.org/news186919775.html Biology Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:00:07 EST news186919775 A further step has been taken towards our understanding of natural selection. CNRS scientists working at the Institut de Biologie of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (CNRS, February) have shown that humans, and some of their primate cousins, have a common genetic footprint, i.e. a set of genes which natural selection has often tended to act upon during the past 200,000 years. This study has also been able to isolate a group of genes that distinguish us from our cousins the great apes. Its findings are published in PloS Genetics (26 February 2010 issue). http://phys.org/news186747433.html Biology Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:50:01 EST news186747433 (PhysOrg.com) -- In 1871, Charles Darwin puzzled over the evolution of altruism. "He who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been," he wrote in The Descent of Man, "rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature." http://phys.org/news186416144.html Biology Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:16:18 EST news186416144 (PhysOrg.com) -- Cooperative behaviors are rare in the animal kingdom and remain a great enigma for evolutionary biologists. A new study by Frederique Dubois, a professor at the University of Montreal Department of Biology and student Karine Larose, concludes that animals simply lack the cognitive abilities and social memory to engage in cooperative behaviors. http://phys.org/news186344168.html Biology Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:10:01 EST news186344168 Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment. http://phys.org/news186311100.html Biology Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:05:19 EST news186311100 The squirrels littering your lawn with acorns as they bound overhead will live to plague your yard longer than the ones that aerate it with their burrows, according to a University of Illinois study. http://phys.org/news186249468.html Biology Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:58:16 EST news186249468 (PhysOrg.com) -- The unexpected discovery of a new type of genetic variation suggests that natural selection - the force that drives evolution - is both more powerful and more complex than scientists have thought. http://phys.org/news185632511.html Biology Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:00:07 EST news185632511 (PhysOrg.com) -- Swiss scientists have proposed that if robots could evolve through natural selection the result would be robots that would help each other, cooperate, and be capable of hunting. Their experiments follow on from earlier studies reported by PhysOrg, which used robots to shed light on evolutionary processes. http://phys.org/news184228204.html Electronics Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:30:30 EST news184228204 (PhysOrg.com) -- Social factors such as what we eat and where we live influence how natural selection acts on human genes, according to a research that is bringing the worlds of genetics and human sciences closer together. http://phys.org/news183104263.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:18:03 EST news183104263 (PhysOrg.com) -- 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. These signs can only be revealed through genetic studies of modern humans and other related species, though the task has proven difficult. http://phys.org/news182095095.html Biology Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:00:07 EST news182095095 (PhysOrg.com) -- Does it matter if nature solves the same problem multiple ways? A NSF-supported study of lizard populations in White Sands, New Mexico has helped researcher Erica Rosenblum of the University of Idaho begin to answer that question. http://phys.org/news181374684.html Biology Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:51:53 EST news181374684 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of thousands of species of plants and animals suggests new species may arise from rare events instead of through an accumulation of small changes made in response to changes in the environment. http://phys.org/news179737267.html Biology Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:40:02 EST news179737267 (PhysOrg.com) -- Despite being a founding principle of modern biology for 150 years, evolutionary theory has played a limited role in the field of medicine. Only in the last 20 years has Darwinian medicine emerged as a discipline unto itself. An article in this month’s issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology explains why early attempts to study disease from an evolutionary perspective failed, and how modern Darwinian medicine differs from its antecedent. http://phys.org/news179686563.html Biology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:19:48 EST news179686563 Although Charles Darwin is most well-known for his book On the Origin of Species, in which he described the process of natural selection, he greatly contributed to many specific fields within biology. As the bicentennial anniversary of Darwin's birth comes to a close, the December issue of the American Journal of Botany presents two papers exploring botanical history before the time of Darwin, Darwin's contributions to botany, and what scientists have discovered in the subsequent years following Darwin's first presentation of his many provocative ideas to the scientific community. http://phys.org/news179593531.html Biology Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:20:04 EST news179593531 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive. http://phys.org/news179512429.html Other Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:34:54 EST news179512429 (AP) -- An auction house says it is selling a rare first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" found in a family's guest lavatory in southern England. http://phys.org/news178121903.html Biology Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:30:03 EST news178121903 (PhysOrg.com) -- New research could help protect the future of a rare bird in the Galapagos Islands that was an inspiration for Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, scientists report in a paper published in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters today. http://phys.org/news177779374.html Biology Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:10:55 EST news177779374 The concept of altruism has long been debated in philosophical circles, and more recently, evolutionary biologists have joined the debate. From the perspective of natural selection, altruism may have evolved because any action that improves the likelihood of a relative's survival and reproduction increases the chance of an individual's DNA being passed on. Social behavior, kin recognition, and altruism are well known in the animal kingdom; however, although plants have the ability to sense and respond to other plants, their ability to recognize kin and act altruistically has been the subject of few studies. http://phys.org/news177155189.html Biology Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:46:51 EST news177155189 (PhysOrg.com) -- Breaking up may actually not be hard to do, say scientists who've found a population of tropical butterflies that may be on its way to a split into two distinct species. http://phys.org/news176654713.html Biology Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:30:01 EST news176654713 Culture, not just genes, can drive evolutionary outcomes, according to a study released Wednesday that compares individualist and group-oriented societies across the globe. http://phys.org/news175955032.html Biology Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:50:01 EST news175955032 Although advances in medical care have improved standards of living over time, humans aren't entirely sheltered from the forces of natural selection, a new study shows. http://phys.org/news175185659.html Biology Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:41:34 EST news175185659 A 21-year Michigan State University experiment that distills the essence of evolution in laboratory flasks not only demonstrates natural selection at work, but could lead to biotechnology and medical research advances, researchers said. http://phys.org/news175092009.html Biology Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:41:06 EST news175092009 A new study suggests that high mortality rates in small-bodied people, commonly known as pygmies, may be part of the reason for their small stature. The study, by Jay Stock and Andrea Migliano, both of the University of Cambridge, helps unravel the mystery of how small-bodied people got that way. http://phys.org/news173974119.html Biology Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:30:07 EST news173974119 (PhysOrg.com) -- The reason some female hoofed animals have horns while others do not has long puzzled evolutionary biologists, even the great Charles Darwin. But now a survey of 117 bovid species led by Ted Stankowich, professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, suggests an answer: Females that can’t readily hide in protective cover and those who must defend a feeding territory are more likely to have horns than those who live in protective habitat or don’t defend a territory. http://phys.org/news172428997.html Biology Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:50:01 EST news172428997 (PhysOrg.com) -- In an ironic twist to our understanding of life, robots may offer a greater degree of realism for studying some of the intricacies of natural selection and evolution than real organisms offer. In a recent study, scientists have used evolutionary robots to investigate the evolution of social information. Their results mirror theoretical predictions more closely than results from experiments with real organisms, and may provide an explanation for some of the observed variation in animal species. http://phys.org/news172304708.html Electronics Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:30:02 EST news172304708