Million years of evolution have produced a dazzling variety of species, each uniquely adapted to its environment. A straightforward way to measuring biodiversity is by the number of species (taxonomic diversity). Recently, ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 24, 2021
0
4
Scientists have discovered that tiny 'microchromosomes' in birds and reptiles, initially thought to be specks of dust on the microscope slide, are linked to a spineless animal ancestor that lived 684 million years ago. They ...
Evolution
Nov 2, 2021
0
61
The diversity of human languages can be likened to branches on a tree. If you're reading this in English, you're on a branch that traces back to a common ancestor with Scots, which traces back to a more distant ancestor that ...
Social Sciences
Sep 10, 2021
3
1939
Plump and ponderous, tardigrades earned the nickname "water bears" when scientists first observed the 0.02-inch-long animals' distinctive lumbering gaits in the 18th century. Their dumpy plod, however, raises the question ...
General Physics
Aug 27, 2021
3
1406
Exquisitely preserved fossils left behind by creatures living more than half a billion years ago reveal in great detail identical structures that researchers have long hypothesized must have contributed to the archetypal ...
Evolution
Aug 20, 2021
0
474
The formation of hybrids—organisms obtained after crossing genetically different forms—is more widespread in nature previously thought. Usually, only closely related species can hybridize. For example, hybrids occur in ...
Evolution
Aug 19, 2021
0
172
450 million years ago, the first plants left aquatic life. Researchers from the CNRS and the Université de Toulouse III—Paul Sabatier, in collaboration with INRAE, have succeeded in demonstrating that this colonization ...
Plants & Animals
May 20, 2021
0
31
A new study shows that the similarly smooth, nearly hairless skin of whales and hippopotamuses evolved independently. The work suggests that their last common ancestor was likely a land-dwelling mammal, uprooting current ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 1, 2021
0
294
The creation of genes with new functions is a major driver of developmental innovation in all living organisms. How these genes acquire new functions over evolutionary time scales, however, is unclear.
Plants & Animals
Mar 29, 2021
0
48
Ever since the era of Darwin, adaptive evolution has been a cornerstone of evolutionary biology. One essential related question is do animals adapt similarly to a shared environments? Indeed, scientists have long ago observed ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 24, 2021
0
17
