Jack-of-all-trades slows down evolutionary tree

All living organisms are tips of an evolutionary tree that emerged over 3.5 billion years from a single common ancestor. Research in the Department of Bionanoscience at Delft University of Technology has provided the first ...

Examining the source behind Sherpa mountain fitness

The Sherpa population in Tibet is world-renowned for their extraordinary high-altitude fitness, as most famously demonstrated by Tenzing Norgay's ability to conquer Mount Everest alongside Sir Edmund Hillary. The genetic ...

Blind mole-rats are resistant to chemically induced cancers

Like naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus gaber), blind mole-rats (of the genus Spalax) live underground in low-oxygen environments, are long-lived and resistant to cancer. A new study demonstrates just how cancer-resistant Spalax ...

Lizards show evolution is predictable

If you could hit the reset button on evolution and start over, would essentially the same species appear? Yes, according to a study of Caribbean lizards by researchers at the University of California, Davis, Harvard University ...

Research suggests Madagascar no longer an evolutionary hotspot

Madagascar has long been known as a hotspot of biodiversity. Although it represents only one percent of the earth's area, it is home to about three percent of all animal and plant species on the planet. But research suggests ...

Birds outpace climate change to avoid extinction

A new study has shed light on the potential of birds to survive in the face of climate change. In the analysis, based on more than fifty years' detailed study of a population of great tits near Oxford, UK, a team of scientists ...

Biological fitness trumps other traits in mating game

When a new species emerges following adaptive changes to its local environment, the process of choosing a mate can help protect the new species' genetic identity and increase the likelihood of its survival. But of the many ...

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