Molecular analysis of the eggshell structure of large flightless birds such as ostriches and emus provides new insights into how they evolved.
Evolution
Jan 31, 2023
0
108
It's almost Valentine's Day, and love is in the air. Or in the waxy coating on your skin, if you are a vinegar fly. That's where flies encounter pheromones that play an important role in regulating sexual attraction.
Evolution
Jan 31, 2023
0
14
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have shown that zebrafish can provide genetic clues to the evolution of social behaviors in humans and domesticated species.
Molecular & Computational biology
Jan 3, 2023
1
96
A study conducted by researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin revealed the evolution of ossification patterns in the backbones of four-legged vertebrates. Antoine Verrière and his colleagues were able to reconstruct ...
Evolution
Dec 29, 2022
0
429
A team of researchers at the University of Patras's, OCEANUS- Lab has found evidence suggesting that early human ancestors (extinct hominids) may have sailed across the Aegean Sea.
Although the little skate is a fish, it is known for using its fins like legs to walk, similar to terrestrial vertebrates. The little skate is thought to have diverged from a common ancestor with terrestrial tetrapods about ...
Evolution
Dec 14, 2022
0
54
About 600 seemingly disparate fungi that never quite found a fit along the fungal family tree have been shown to have a common ancestor, according to a University of Alberta-led research team that used genome sequencing to ...
Evolution
Nov 23, 2022
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2853
A team of Duke researchers has identified a group of human DNA sequences driving changes in brain development, digestion and immunity that seem to have evolved rapidly after our family line split from that of the chimpanzees, ...
Evolution
Nov 23, 2022
0
245
Early human ancestors living 780,000 years ago liked their fish well-done, Israeli researchers revealed Monday, in what they said was the earliest evidence of fire being used to cook.
Paleontology & Fossils
Nov 19, 2022
0
59
November 15, 2022, marks a milestone for our species, as the global population hits 8 billion. Just 70 years ago, within a human lifetime, there were only 2.5 billion of us. In AD1, fewer than one-third of a billion. So ...
Evolution
Nov 16, 2022
0
1
An ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth).
Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other, or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, species which share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria and other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer.
Assuming that all of an individual's ancestors are otherwise unrelated to each other, that individual has 2n ancestors in the nth generation before him and a total of about 2g+1 ancestors in the g generations before him. In practice, however, it is clear that the vast majority of ancestors of humans (and indeed any other species) are multiply related (see Pedigree collapse). Consider n = 40: the human species is surely more than 40 generations old, yet the number 240, approximately 1012 or one trillion, dwarfs the number of humans that have ever lived.
Ignoring the possibility of other inter-relationships (even distant ones) among ancestors, an individual has a total of 2046 ancestors up to the 10th generation, 1024 of which are 10th generation ancestors. With the same assumption, any given person has over a billion 30th generation ancestors (who lived roughly 1000 years ago) and this theoretical number increases past the estimated total population of the world in around AD 1000. (All of these ancestors will have contributed to one's autosomal DNA is concerned: this excludes Y-chromosomal DNA and mitochondrial DNA.)
Some cultures confer reverence to ancestors, both living and dead; in contrast, some more youth-oriented cultural contexts display less veneration of elders. In other cultural contexts, some people seek providence from their deceased ancestors; this practice is sometimes known as ancestor worship or, more accurately, ancestor veneration.
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