The first comprehensive comparison of Y chromosomes from two species sheds new light on Y chromosome evolution. Contrary to a widely held scientific theory that the mammalian Y chromosome is slowly decaying or stagnating, new evidence suggests that in fact the Y is continuously reinventing itself.
Fossils may provide tantalizing clues to human history but they also lack some vital information, such as revealing which pieces of human DNA have been favored by evolution because they confer beneficial traits — resistance to infection or the ability to digest milk, for example. Now, researchers describe a method for pinpointing these preferred regions that offers greater precision and resolution than ever before, and the possibility of deeply understanding both our genetic past and present.
University of Utah biologists found that finches – the birds Darwin studied – develop antibodies against two parasites that moved to the Galapagos Islands, suggesting the birds can fight the alien invaders.
An international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, professor of Anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis, has reanalyzed the complete immature dentition of a 30,000 year-old-child from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal. The new analysis of the Lagar Velho child shows that these “early modern humans” were “modern” without being “fully modern.”
Darwin celebrated; evolution still under attack. The Year in Review.
The timing of molar emergence and its relation to growth and reproduction in apes is being reported by scientists at Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins. “We can use the same techniques to calculate ages at first molar emergence from the fossils of early hominids that just happened to die while their first molars were erupting,” they say.
Research on communication in animals helps understand of how language develops in humans and how they use it. Language is a phenomenon of evolutionary biology.
A new study provides credence to the understanding that asexual reproduction allows for the ongoing accumulation and replication of harmful mutations, leaving less room for adaptation to rapidly changing environments.
Genes that don’t themselves directly affect the inherited characteristics of an organism but leave them increasingly open to variation may be a significant driving force of evolution, say two Johns Hopkins scientists.
Name all the venomous animals you can think of and you probably come up with snakes, spiders, bees, wasps and perhaps poisonous frogs. But catfish?
Ancient DNA retrieved from extinct horse species from around the world has challenged one of the textbook examples of evolution – the fossil record of the horse family Equidae over the past 55 million years.
Female birds in species that breed in groups can find themselves under pressure to sexually show off and evolve the same kinds of embellishments – like fanciful tail feathers or chest-puffing courtship dances - as males, according to new research in the latest issue of Nature (Dec. 10, 2009).
NCSE is shifting its primary domain to ncse.com.
Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that honeybees can discriminate between food at different temperatures, an ability that may assist bees in locating the warm, sugar-rich nectar or high-protein pollen produced by many flowers.
NCSE responds to creationist edition of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species."
If humans are genetically related to chimps, why did our brains develop the innate ability for language and speech while theirs did not? Scientists suspect that part of the answer to the mystery lies in a gene called FOXP2. When mutated, FOXP2 can disrupt speech and language in humans. Now, a UCLA/Emory study reveals major differences between how the human and chimp versions of FOXP2 work, perhaps explaining why language is unique to humans.
A study published this week in PNAS provides a comprehensive comparative functional anatomy study in human and monkey brains which reveals highly similar brain networks preserved across evolution.
NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott takes aim at creationist Ray Comfort's distorted views on evolution in a debate taking place on the U.S. News & World Report site.
Spend a little time people-watching at the beach and you're bound to notice differences in the amount, thickness and color of people's body hair. Then head to the zoo and compare people to chimps, our closest living relatives.
A scientific analysis of a recently discovered adapiform, an ancient primate, reveals that the fossil, called Afradapis, is not on the evolutionary lineage of anthropoids (Old World Monkeys and higher primates, including humans) but instead more closely to lemurs and lorises.
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