New research helps explain the genetic basis for why we look the way we do
Which genes control the defining features that make us look as we do? And how do they make it happen?
Evolution
Nov 10, 2021
0
202
News tagged with hox genes
Secrets of the amazing tardigrades revealed by their DNA
New genome sequences shed light on both the origins of the tardigrades (also known as water bears or moss piglets), and the genes that underlie their extraordinary ability to survive in extreme conditions. A team of researchers ...
Biotechnology
Jul 27, 2017
0
80
Study puts new perspective on snake evolution
Snakes may not have shoulders, but their bodies aren't as simple as commonly thought, according to a new study that could change how scientists think snakes evolved.
Evolution
Jan 5, 2015
6
93
The first vertebrate sexual organs evolved as an extra pair of legs
We humans use the euphemism for sex that "we like to get a leg over" but the first jawed vertebrates – the placoderms – they liked to get a leg in.
Evolution
Jun 9, 2014
3
0
How the bumble bee got its stripes
Researchers have discovered a gene that drives color differences within a species of bumble bees. This discovery helps to explain the highly diverse color patterns among bumble bee species as well as how mimicry—individuals ...
Ecology
Apr 29, 2019
0
1446
New techniques boost understanding of how fish fins became fingers
One of the great transformations required for the descendants of fish to become creatures that could walk on land was the replacement of long, elegant fin rays by fingers and toes. In the Aug. 17, 2016 issue of Nature, scientists ...
Evolution
Aug 17, 2016
0
21
Master regulators of embryonic development: Humans and fruit flies have similar Hox genes
Hox genes are the master regulators of embryonic development for all animals, including humans, flies and worms. They decide what body parts go where. Not surprisingly, if something goes wrong with these genes, the results ...
Biotechnology
Sep 13, 2013
2
0
Origin of a complex life form revealed
Researchers from McGill University have revealed the steps by which two very distinct organisms—bacteria and carpenter ants—have come to depend on one another for survival to become a single complex life form. The study, ...
Evolution
Sep 2, 2020
0
1628
Which came first the head or the brain?
(Phys.org) —A fundamental question in the evolution of animal body plans, is where did the head come from? In animals with a clear axis of right-left symmetry, the bilaterians, the head is where the brain is, at the anterior ...
How an ancient vertebrate uses familiar tools to build a strange-looking head
If you never understood what "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" meant in high school, don't worry: biologists no longer think that an animal's "ontogeny", that is, its embryonic development, replays its entire evolutionary ...
Biotechnology
Sep 14, 2014
7
0
