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 website makes exploring the evolutionary tree of life as easy as using an online mapping service. http://phys.org/news269587242.html Biology Tue, 16 Oct 2012 06:21:00 EST news269587242 (Phys.org)—The Tree of Life is a beautiful and elegant metaphor that has proven deceptively difficult to reconstruct. The main culprit may be the overwhelming reliance on so-called concatenation methods, which combine different genes into a single matrix and so force all genes to conform to the same topology. Since these methods do not take into account differences between alternative gene trees, they have been thought to lead to uncertainty or incongruence in the phylogenic tree of the eutherian (placental) mammals. While historically this incongruence had not previously been confirmed by empirical studies, scientists at Shenyang Normal University, Tsinghua University, University of Georgia and Harvard University have recently demonstrated that this is indeed the case – and that concatenation-derived uncertainty may be found in other clades (biological groups derived from a common ancestor) as well. Moreover, the authors suggest that such uncertainty can be resolved by augmenting phylogenomic data with coalescent methods – that is, techniques for dealing with differences in genomic ancestral trees. http://phys.org/news269523525.html Biology Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:00:01 EST news269523525 (Phys.org)—Using a combination of traditional and innovative model-building techniques, scientists in the U.S. and a specialist in Denmark have created a lifelike reconstruction of an ancient mollusk, offering a vivid portrait of a creature that lived about 390 million years ago, and answering questions about its place in the tree of life, as described in the Sept. 18 edition of the journal Palaeontology. http://phys.org/news267278887.html Other Sciences Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:09:47 EST news267278887 A new Web resource developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego is helping thousands of researchers worldwide unravel the enigmas of phylogenetics, the study of evolutionary relationships among virtually every species on the planet. http://phys.org/news260548386.html Biology Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:33:33 EST news260548386 A new initiative aims to build a grand tree of life that brings together everything scientists know about how all living things are related, from the tiniest bacteria to the tallest tree. http://phys.org/news256823294.html Biology Mon, 21 May 2012 12:48:24 EST news256823294 After two decades of examining a microscopic algae-eater that lives in a lake in Norway, scientists on Thursday declared it to be one of the world's oldest living organisms and man's remotest relative. http://phys.org/news254670477.html Biology Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:48:25 EST news254670477 (PhysOrg.com) -- Imagine the wealth of information that would be at our fingertips if we could understand the genetic basis and evolutionary history that underlies the vast diversity in form and function seen within mammals. http://phys.org/news242983323.html Biology Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:22:25 EST news242983323 An international research team led by biologists at the University of California, Riverside and Texas A&M University has released for the first time a large and robust DNA matrix that has representation for all mammalian families. The matrix – the culmination of about five years of painstaking research – has representatives for 99 percent of mammalian families, and covers not only the earliest history of mammalian diversification but also all the deepest divergences among living mammals. http://phys.org/news235898491.html Biology Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:01:19 EST news235898491 Kangaroos form an important niche in the tree of life, but until now their DNA had never been sequenced. In an article newly published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, an international consortium of researchers present the first kangaroo genome sequence – that of the tammar wallaby species – and find hidden in their data the gene that may well be responsible for the kangaroo's characteristic hop. http://phys.org/news232943350.html Biology Fri, 19 Aug 2011 03:29:32 EST news232943350 Researchers at the University of Exeter have uncovered a 'missing link' in the fungal tree of life after analysing samples taken from the university's pond. http://phys.org/news224337342.html Biology Wed, 11 May 2011 13:00:22 EST news224337342 (PhysOrg.com) -- Someday a future intelligent organism could sweep away a million years of dust and find the bones of a Homo sapiens and wonder what he was. http://phys.org/news219925293.html Other Sciences Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:21:49 EST news219925293 (PhysOrg.com) -- Despite its seemingly simple appearance, the humble sea sponge could have the ability to advance stem cell research, according to scientists working at UQ's Heron Island Research Station and the St Lucia Campus. http://phys.org/news167928519.html Biology Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:10:01 EST news167928519