Evolution

As a young woman from France working as a civil servant in Liverpool in 1999, I once stumbled upon a book in a discount book shop, which was going to change the way I would look upon things. The book was called “Baby Wars: The Dynamics of Family Conflict” by Robin Baker and Elizabeth Oram. As its title doesn’t necessarily imply, it discussed the genesis of today's family dynamics from the standpoint of evolutionary biology. It was hardly a science classic, but coming myself from a relatively uninteresting degree of applied chemistry, and having never thought of human behavior  as being…

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers is challenging the theory that the origin of life stems from a system of self-catalytic molecules capable of experiencing Darwinian evolution without the need of RNA or DNA and their replication. Through the analysis of 'compound genomes', the team argues that these chemical networks cannot be considered evolutionary units because they lose properties which are essential for evolution when they reach a critical size and greater level of complexity.  The scientific theories on the origin of life revolve…

While fossils may provide some tantalizing clues about human history, they also lack vital information needed to understand the past, such as which pieces of human DNA have been favored by evolution because they confer beneficial traits. Those genetic signs can only be revealed through studies of modern humans and other related species, and in a new Science Express paper, researchers describe a method for pinpointing these preferred regions within the human genome. "It's clear that positive natural selection has been a critical force in shaping the human genome, but there are remarkably few…

Researchers from the University of Florida and Oklahoma State University have found common denominators in the calls of hundreds of species of insects, birds, fish, frogs, lizards and mammals that can be predicted with simple mathematical models. Compiling data from nearly 500 species, scientists say the calls of a whole host of creatures are ultimately controlled by their uptake and use of energy,  or their metabolic rates. The finding, reported in today's Proceedings of the Royal Society B, will help scientists understand how acoustic communication evolved across species, uniting a…

University of Utah biologists have found that finches – the birds Charles Darwin famously studied – develop antibodies against two parasites (a pox virus and a nest fly) that moved to the Galapagos, suggesting the birds can fight the alien invaders. With the discovery that the medium ground finches produce antibodies aimed specifically at the parasites "the next step is to determine if this immune response is helping the birds or hurting the birds," says University of Utah biology Professor Dale Clayton, who led the new study published online Wednesday, Jan 6. in PLoS ONE. One cannot assume…

      A lot of geographical changes taking place like old faithfulin Yellowstone National Park ; the length of the interval has increased overthe years, which may be the results of earth quakes over the years from a BillingsGazette article July 21 1963. Fast evolution like the San Andreas Fault which scientistsay has been stressed maybe for the next big one since starting from record keeping of 1857, 1851,1901,1992,1934and 1966. Then in 2004 the last one and now waiting on the big one. USGS EarthquakeHazard Program.   The million's of year evolution theory…

  A lot of geographical changes taking place like old faithfulin Yellowstone National Park ; the length of the interval has increased overthe years, which may be the results of earth quakes over the years from a BillingsGazette article July 21 1963. Fast evolution like the San Andreas Fault which scientistsay has been stressed maybe for the next big one since starting from record keeping of 1857, 1851,1901,1992,1934and 1966. Then in 2004 the last one and now waiting on the big one. USGS EarthquakeHazard Program.   The million's of year evolution theory and hypothesis; isjust…

A team of anthropologists has for the first time directly analyzed DNA from a member of our own species who lived around 30,000 years ago, allowing scientists a unique glimpse into the history of evolution. Their research is detailed in the December 31 issue of Current Biology. DNA--the hereditary material contained in the nuclei and mitochondria of all body cells--is a hardy molecule and can persist, conditions permitting, for several tens of thousands of years. Such ancient DNA provides scientists with unique possibilities to directly glimpse into the genetic make-up of organisms that have…

The authors of a new study published in Current Biology say they've gained new insight into the sex lives of malaria spreading mosquitoes. In finding a partner of the right species type, male and female mosquitoes depend on their ability to "sing" in perfect harmony, and those tones are produced and varied based on the frequency of their wing beats in flight. "Everyone must be familiar with the maddening whine a mosquito makes as it hones in for a bite," said Gabriella Gibson of the University of Greenwich at Medway. "There's no doubt many of us have wondered why it makes its presence so…

From the smallest South American monkeys to the largest African apes, the timing of molar development and eruption is closely attuned to many fundamental aspects of a primate's biology, according to Gary Schwartz, a researcher at the Institute of Human Origins and an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "Knowing the age when the first molar appears in the mouths of most primates allows researchers to predict a host of life history attributes, such as gestation length, age at sexual maturity, birth spacing, and…