(Phys.org)—The Tree of Life is a beautiful and elegant metaphor that has proven deceptively difficult to reconstruct. The main culprit may be the overwhelming reliance on so-called concatenation methods, which combine different ...
Fossils trapped in amber provide a unique snapshot of the anatomy, biology, and ecology of extinct organisms. The most common fossils found in amber, which is formed from resin exuded from tree bark, are land-dwelling animals, ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 20, 2021
1
3186
An international team of researchers analyzed the genomes of 20 butterfly species and discovered a surprisingly high amount of gene flow among them - even between species that are distantly related. The findings, published ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 31, 2019
0
103
(Phys.org)—Once exposed to the influenza virus, humans mount an immune response that can be recalled by the adaptive immune system when they are exposed a second time. However, the virus mutates rapidly, and individuals ...
A new University of Florida study based on DNA analysis from living flowering plants shows that the ancestors of most modern trees diversified extremely rapidly 90 million years ago, ultimately leading to the formation of ...
Archaeology
Feb 9, 2009
0
2
Modern microscopy technology has allowed two scorpion biologists, Carsten Kamenz of the Humboldt University in Berlin and Lorenzo Prendini of the American Museum of Natural History, to study and document what is nearly invisible. ...
Jan 12, 2009
0
0
When scientists and policymakers make tough calls on which areas to prioritize for conservation, biodiversity is often their top consideration. Environments with more diversity support a greater number of species and provide ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 25, 2024
0
294
In the quest to decipher the evolutionary relationships of extinct organisms from fossils, researchers often face challenges in discerning key features from weathered fossils, or with prioritizing characteristics of organisms ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Mar 20, 2024
0
54
Anemonefish form mutualistic relationships with the sea anemones they live in and these associations are not random: some species such as the yellow-tail anemonefish (Amphiprion clarkii) are generalists and can live in almost ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 11, 2024
0
61
Researchers report in the journal Cell that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin—and, by extension, our large, complex brains.
Evolution
Feb 15, 2024
5
80
