(Phys.org)—Throughout her career, the famous biologist Lynn Margulis (1938-2011) argued that the world of microorganisms has a much larger impact on the entire biosphere—the world of all living things—than scientists ...
In 2015, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich coauthored a study declaring the world's sixth mass extinction was underway. Five years later, Ehrlich and colleagues at other institutions have a grim update: the extinction rate ...
Ecology
Jun 1, 2020
8
682
In recent years, scientists have teased out many of the secrets of biomineralization, the process by which sea urchins grow spines, mollusks build their shells and corals make their skeletons, not to mention how mammals and ...
Archaeology
Aug 20, 2019
0
621
Salt is essential for life. As ancient civilizations evolved from hunters and gatherers to agrarian societies, it has not been clear how people acquired this mineral that is a biological necessity. However, an anthropologist ...
Archaeology
Oct 8, 2018
1
79
Researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have opened a window on another piece of evolutionary biology. They have found that Hox genes, which are key regulators of the way the bodies of bilaterally symmetrical ...
Evolution
Sep 27, 2018
0
113
Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and overseas have discovered molecules of fat in an ancient fossil to reveal the earliest confirmed animal in the geological record that lived on Earth 558 million ...
Archaeology
Sep 20, 2018
2
1084
The evolution of the first animals may have oxygenated the earth's oceans – contrary to the traditional view that a rise in oxygen triggered their development.
Earth Sciences
Mar 9, 2014
3
1
One of science's strongest dogmas is that complex life on Earth could only evolve when oxygen levels in the atmosphere rose to close to modern levels. But now studies of a small sea sponge fished out of a Danish fjord shows ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 17, 2014
24
0
(Phys.org) —Increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere are causing oceans to become more acidic. This situation poses a threat to marine organisms with shells made of calcium carbonate, because acid will ...
Christopher Cameron of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological Sciences and his colleagues have unearthed a major scientific discovery - a strange phallus-shaped creature they found in Canada's Burgess Shale ...
Archaeology
Mar 13, 2013
14
0
