News tagged with evolutionary

Scientists replicate key evolutionary step in life on earth

(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on Earth's surface began forming multi-cellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (46) | comments 500 | with audio podcast

Do bacteria age? Biologists discover the answer follows simple economics

When a bacterial cell divides into two daughter cells and those two cells divide into four more daughters, then 8, then 16 and so on, the result, biologists have long assumed, is an eternally youthful population of bacteria. ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 27, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (30) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

'Game-changer' in evolution from S. African bones

An analysis of 2 million-year-old bones found in South Africa offers the most powerful case so far in identifying the transitional figure that came before modern humans - findings some are calling a potential ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Sep 08, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (25) | comments 13

Astronomers discover biggest black holes ever (Update)

University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 05, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (24) | comments 22 | with audio podcast

Mouse to elephant? Just wait 24 million generations

Scientists have for the first time measured how fast large-scale evolution can occur in mammals, showing it takes 24 million generations for a mouse-sized animal to evolve to the size of an elephant.

Biology / Evolution

created Jan 30, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (24) | comments 46 | with audio podcast

Human origins traced to worm fossil in Canada

(PhysOrg.com) -- Most primitive known vertebrate and therefore the ancestor of all descendant vertebrates, including humans, discovered.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Mar 05, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (23) | comments 18 | with audio podcast

Study shows humans still evolving

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence of human evolution and rapid genetic changes suggesting that, contrary to modern claims, technological and cu ...

Biology / Evolution

created Oct 04, 2011 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (21) | comments 57 | with audio podcast report

Evolution is written all over your face

Why are the faces of primates so dramatically different from one another?

Biology / Evolution

created Jan 11, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (16) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Change in developmental timing was crucial in the evolutionary shift from dinosaurs to birds: study

At first glance, it's hard to see how a common house sparrow and a Tyrannosaurus Rex might have anything in common. After all, one is a bird that weighs less than an ounce, and the other is a dinosaur that ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 27, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (14) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Over 65 million years North American mammal evolution has tracked with climate change

Climate changes profoundly influenced the rise and fall of six distinct, successive waves of mammal species diversity in North America over the last 65 million years, shows a novel statistical analysis led ...

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 26, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (17) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Professor was right: Mastodon weapon was older than thought, scientists say

It's not unusual for an archaeologist to get stuck in the past, but Carl Gustafson may be the only one consumed by events on the Olympic Peninsula in 1977.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 07, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (14) | comments 5

Hidden soil fungus, now revealed, is in a class all its own

A type of fungus that's been lurking underground for millions of years, previously known to science only through its DNA, has been cultured, photographed, named and assigned a place on the tree of life.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Aug 11, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

'Snakes' seen in human cells

(PhysOrg.com) -- Curious snake-like forms have been spotted in cells from many different species across the evolutionary tree. Now Oxford scientists have shown they exist in human cells as well.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 03, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (14) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Two new NASA LRO videos: See moon's evolution, take a tour

In honor of 1,000 days in orbit, the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md. has released two new videos.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 14, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (13) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Future forests may soak up more carbon dioxide than previously believed

North American forests appear to have a greater capacity to soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas than researchers had previously anticipated.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (12) | comments 7 | with audio podcast