In the face of natural selection, genetic mutations set some individuals up for success. A single change to the sequence of a gene can give an organism an advantage—and if that mutation is passed to future generations, ...
Evolution
Feb 15, 2022
0
6
Plants are DNA hoarders. Adhering to the maxim of never throwing anything out that might be useful later, they often duplicate their entire genome and hang on to the added genetic baggage. All those extra genes are then free ...
Evolution
Jul 19, 2021
0
127
Evolution adapts and optimizes organisms to their ecological niche. This could be used to predict how an organism evolves, but how can such predictions be rigorously tested?
Evolution
Feb 16, 2021
0
60
Adaptive radiation—the rapid evolution of many new species from a single ancestor—is a major focus in evolutionary biology. Adaptive radiations often show remarkable repeatability where lineages have undergone multiple ...
Evolution
Oct 7, 2020
0
22
There's a paradox within the theory of evolution: The life forms that exist today are here because they were able to change when past environments disappeared. Yet, organisms evolve to fit into specific environmental niches.
Plants & Animals
Aug 11, 2020
2
398
Some of the most fundamental questions in evolution remain unanswered, such as when and how extremely diverse groups of animals—for example reptiles—first evolved. For seventy-five years, adaptive radiations—the relatively ...
Evolution
Jul 6, 2020
1
176
Species adapt to their local climates, but how often they adapt to their local communities remains a mystery. To find answers, researchers at McGill University and the University of British Columbia examined over 125 studies ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 25, 2020
0
13
A new study from University of Michigan biologists presents the first genetic evidence of resistance in some bats to white-nose syndrome, a deadly fungal disease that has decimated some North American bat populations.
Plants & Animals
Feb 20, 2020
0
2302
Starch, a complex carbohydrate, is a vital source of nutrition for many mammals. Humans farm it in the form of rice, wheat, corn, potatoes and oats. Rats comb our garbage piles for scraps of pizza and bread. Wild boars root ...
Evolution
May 14, 2019
1
64
Almost all mammals avoid eating chili peppers and other "hot" foods, because of the pain they induce. But not the tree shrew, according to a study publishing July 12 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Yalan Han of ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 12, 2018
2
111
