Researchers have identified traces of what they believe is the earliest known prehistoric ancestor of humans—a microscopic, bag-like sea creature, which lived about 540 million years ago.
Archaeology
Jan 30, 2017
7
10688
A small team of researchers with members from the U.S., the Netherlands, Russia and Italy has developed a new model that illuminates how changing the degree of certainty a person holds for a given belief can lead to changes ...
It's one of the greatest mysteries of modern science: how did life begin exactly? While most scientists believe that all lifeforms evolved from a common, primitive ancestor microorganism, the details are blurry. What kinds ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 26, 2016
20
1975
Some of the bacteria in our guts were passed down over millions of years, since before we were human, suggesting that evolution plays a larger role than previously known in people's intestinal-microbe makeup, according to ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 21, 2016
4
1683
Strong fists for defending ourselves and opposable thumbs for work as fine as threading a needle—hand specialisation is widely believed to have given humans a major evolutionary advantage.
Evolution
Jul 14, 2015
33
2306
A new study of an otherworldly creature from half a billion years ago - a worm-like animal with legs, spikes and a head difficult to distinguish from its tail - has definitively identified its head for the first time, and ...
Archaeology
Jun 24, 2015
4
608
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have determined that toothed whales lack functional Mx genes—a surprising discovery, since all 56 other sequenced mammals in the study possess these genes to fight ...
Evolution
Jun 15, 2015
0
855
New research shows that a burst of evolutionary innovation in the genes responsible for electrical communication among nerve cells in our brains occurred over 600 million years ago in a common ancestor of humans and the sea ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 16, 2015
5
1399
Working at the edge of a coal mine in India, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers and colleagues have filled in a major gap in science's understanding of the evolution of a group of animals that includes horses and rhinos. ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Nov 20, 2014
0
0
Whether birds are breathing in or out, air flows in a one-directional loop through their lungs. This pattern was unexpected and for decades, biologists assumed it was unique to birds, a special adaptation driven by the intense ...
Evolution
Nov 17, 2014
0
0
