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Evolution news
Mane attraction: Molecular 'switch' may control long scalp hair
Treating hair loss may be as simple as developing therapies to flip a molecular "switch," according to a new study by researchers from Penn State; the University of California, Irvine; and National Taiwan University.
Evolution
Jan 23, 2025
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Computational tool streamlines genetic analysis for evolutionary biologists
Researchers at Hokkaido University have developed a new computational tool to help evolutionary biologists analyze complex genetic data to reconstruct the evolutionary history of species and the relationships between them.
Evolution
Jan 23, 2025
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A new twist in an old origin story: Earliest dinosaurs may have emerged in the Amazon
The remains of the earliest dinosaurs may lie undiscovered in the Amazon and other equatorial regions of South America and Africa, suggests a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.
Evolution
Jan 23, 2025
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Solving the evolutionary puzzle of polyploidy: How genome duplication shapes adaptation
Evolution is the basis of biological diversity, driven by mechanisms that allow organisms to adapt and survive. One such mechanism is polyploidy, where organisms carry extra copies of their genomes. While polyploidy provides ...
Evolution
Jan 23, 2025
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Azraq Basin fossils reveal mammals shrank during Pleistocene-Holocene climate shift
Earth's climate changed dramatically during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene 130,000 to 7,000 years ago, when cold glacial cycles transitioned into the current warmer interglacial. Such a climatic evolution had considerable ...
El Niño drought reveals survival advantage in monkeys with robust stress response
White-faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica who experienced more intense physiological responses to mild droughts were more fit to survive extreme drought, researchers found in a new UCLA-led study.
Plants & Animals
Jan 22, 2025
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New software package drives deeper understanding of trait evolution
Evolution is complex and difficult to study, but a new software package developed by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station offers researchers a better way to simulate how organisms change over time.
Evolution
Jan 22, 2025
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The secret 'sex lives' of bacteria: Study challenges old ideas about how species form
When Kostas Konstantinidis proved that many bacteria—like plants and animals—are organized into species, he upended a long-held scientific belief. Scientists widely believed that bacteria, due to their unique genetic ...
Evolution
Jan 22, 2025
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More than 100 years of data suggest men are growing taller and heavier at twice the rate of women
A gender specialist at the University of Genoa, in Italy, a psychologist at the University of Missouri, in the U.S., and a behavioralist at the University of Roehampton, in the U.K, have found that men are growing taller ...
Plants more likely to be 'eavesdroppers' than altruists when tapping into underground networks, study finds
A new study led by the University of Oxford has used a modeling approach to show that it is unlikely that plants would evolve to warn other plants of impending attack. Instead of using their communication networks to transmit ...
Evolution
Jan 22, 2025
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Model shows evolution had many optimal outcomes to choose from
Is there only one optimal configuration an organism can reach during evolution? Is there a single formula that describes the trajectory towards the optimum? And can we 'derive' it in a purely theoretical fashion?
Evolution
Jan 22, 2025
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Early humans' hunting habits reshaped scavenger communities, study suggests
A new study indicates that human behavior around 45,000 to 29,000 years ago contributed to a change in the composition of scavenging animal species living nearby. While smaller scavenging animals such as foxes and some bird ...
Evolution
Jan 22, 2025
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Reversing age-related fertility decline in male fruit flies: The crucial role of seminal fluid
As males age, their reproductive success typically declines. A study on fruit flies, led by University of Oxford researchers, has found that while old males do produce fewer offspring than young males, this is not because ...
Evolution
Jan 21, 2025
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How evolutionary adaptations enable a fruit fly to detect and thrive on toxic food sources
The ability to tolerate toxic substances can help animals find new food sources and thrive in certain ecological niches. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena have now discovered that the fruit ...
Evolution
Jan 21, 2025
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Darwin and Bateman thought female animals weren't promiscuous—they were wrong
For far too long, women have been seen as secondary to men under the patriarchal rule of human society.
Plants & Animals
Jan 20, 2025
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Ancient viral DNA shapes early embryo development, study finds
Over half of our genomes consist of thousands of remnants of ancient viral DNA, known as transposable elements, which are widespread across the tree of life. Once dismissed as the "dark side" of the genome, researchers at ...
Evolution
Jan 20, 2025
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New fossil species sheds light on divergent life-history strategies in early land plants
The initial radiation of vascular land plants, evidenced by increases in both diversity and morphological disparity during the Silurian and Devonian periods, is considered plant terrestrialization, which can be seen as the ...
Evolution
Jan 17, 2025
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Big-eyed conch snails use vision to jump away from predators
Snails have a reputation for being slow, with poor eyes that can barely see the world around them.
Plants & Animals
Jan 17, 2025
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Leaf beetles' evolutionary success linked to gene transfer and symbiosis
With more than 50,000 described species, the leaf beetle family is distributed worldwide and represents about a quarter of the species diversity of all herbivores. Leaf beetles can be found to feed on almost all plant groups. ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 17, 2025
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Isotopes in early South African hominin teeth show they ate little meat
A team of climate geochemists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, University of the Witwatersrand and Princeton University has found evidence that early hominins living in South Africa ate a mostly vegetarian diet. ...
Other news
Engineering the first semimetallic Weyl quantum crystal
Using AI machine learning to map hidden molecular interactions in bacteria
Mechanochemical synthesis: New theory explains reaction rate acceleration
Scientists trace deadly cell-to-cell message chain that spreads in sepsis
Reaction pathways of carbon dioxide in supercritical water revealed
Cracking the code: Why platinum electrodes corrode
Improving ammonia synthesis: New iron-based catalyst surpasses century-old benchmark
