the 47-million-year-old Darwinius masillae fossil that was celebrated last year as a so-called 'missing link' between humans and early primates is actually a forebearer of modern-day lemurs and…

Researchers analyzing mitochondrial DNA extracted from a polar bear fossil discovered in Norway in 2004 say the species is relatively young, splitting off from brown bears approximately 150,000 years…

Promiscuous females may be the key to a species' survival, according to new research published today in Current Biology. The study may explain why females of most species have multiple mates, despite…

Researchers who observed viruses as they evolved to infect bacteria say they have confirmed the Red Queen Hypothesis, the idea that competing species drive molecular evolution through natural…

Life can be brutal for yeast in the wild. You don't know where your next meal is coming from or what form it's going to take. The key to being a successful yeast is to be metabolically agile, able to…

Writing in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, Harvard University researchers say they have demonstrated that simple changes in beak length and depth can explain the important…

Assorted creationists claim variously that creation theories are falsifiable and that evolutionary theories are not falsifiable. Here, I want to quickly point out a few flaws that I see in their…

A new study in PNAS of the side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) may bolster the idea that 'morphs', morphologically distinct types often found within species, could be the raw material for…

Natural selection – the force that drives evolution – acts not only on whole organisms and individual genes, but also on gene networks, according to a new study appearing in Nature this week.The…

Biologists have struggled for many years to comprehend the relationships among the major groups of arthropods. Now, a team of researchers has completed new analysis of the evolutionary relationships…