News tagged with ancestral species

Study shows species can change

A study of South American songbirds completed by the Department of Biology at Queen's University and the Argentine Museum of Natural History, has discovered these birds differ dramatically in colour and song yet show very ...

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 08, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Nature's gift for gardening may hold key to biodiversity

Gardeners are used to cross-breeding flowers to produce pretty petals or sweet scents - now scientists have shown the importance of nature's talent for producing new types of flowers.

Biology / Evolution

created Sep 13, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Reversing ecology reveals ancient environments

From hair color to the ancestral line of parasitic bacteria, scientists can glean a lot from genes. But imagine if genes also revealed where you lived or who you spent time with. It turns out they do, if you know where and ...

Biology /

created Feb 25, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Did increased gene duplication set the stage for human evolution?

(PhysOrg.com) -- Roughly 10 million years ago, a major genetic change occurred in a common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. Segments of DNA in its genome began to form duplicate copies at a greater ...

Biology /

created Feb 11, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 8




Search results for ancestral species


Human-like spine morphology found in aquatic eel fossil

For decades, scientists believed that a spine with multiple segments was an exclusive feature of land-dwelling animals. But the discovery of the same anatomical feature in a 345-million-year-old eel suggests ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Newly discovered sensory organ in the chin of baleen whales allows them to be world's largest hunters

Lunge feeding in rorqual whales (a group that includes blue, humpback and fin whales) is unique among mammals, but details of how it works have remained elusive. Now, scientists from the Smithsonian Institution ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Hitting snooze on the molecular clock: Rabies evolves slower in hibernating bats

The rate at which the rabies virus evolves in bats may depend heavily upon the ecological traits of its hosts, according to researchers at the University of Georgia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 18, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Genes underlying the key domestication process in sorghum and other cereals

A study by a team of university and government scientists led by a Kansas State University researcher, indicates that genes responsible for seed shattering -- the process by which grasses disseminate their seeds -- were under ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 14, 2012 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Earth history and evolution

In classical mythology, the cypress tree is associated with death, the underworld and eternity. Indeed, the family to which cypresses belong, is an ancient lineage of conifers, and a new study of their evolution affords a ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 03, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Orangutans harbor ancient primate Alu

Alu elements infiltrated the ancestral primate genome about 65 million years ago. Once gained an Alu element is rarely lost so comparison of Alu between species can be used to map primate evolution and diversity. New research ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Diversity aided mammals' survival over deep time

When it comes to adapting to climate change, diversity is the mammal's best defense.

Biology / Ecology

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Slow snails, fast genes: Predatory snails refine venoms through continuous gene duplication

(Phys.org) -- When tropical marine cone snails sink their harpoon-like teeth into their prey, they inject paralyzing venoms made from a potent mix of more than 100 different neurotoxins.

Biology / Biotechnology

created Apr 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

The Viking journey of mice and men

House mice (Mus musculus) happily live wherever there are humans. When populations of humans migrate the mice often travel with them. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology h ...

Biology / Evolution

created Mar 19, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

MRSA in livestock acquired drug resistance on the farm, now infects humans

Researchers have discovered that a strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria that humans contract from livestock was originally a human strain, but it developed resistance to antibiotics once i ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 21, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast


List of search results for ancestral species