Humans and chimpanzees differ in only one percent of their DNA. Human accelerated regions (HARs) are parts of the genome with an unexpected amount of these differences.
Research suggests that findings about human risk preferences also apply to risk-taking in chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary ancestor in the animal kingdom, and that individual chimps’ risk preference is stable and trait-like across situations.
With the world’s population topping 8 billion last year, it’s clear that humans have achieved a unique status in Earth’s history. We are the only creature that dominate all other organisms on the planet, from animals and fungi to plants and microbes.
Using a new method based upon comparing DNA mutation rates between parents and offspring, evolutionary biologists at Indiana University have for the first time revealed the average age of mothers versus fathers over the past 250,000 years, including the discovery that the age gap is shrinking, with women's average age at conception increasing from 23.2 years to 26.4 years, on average, in the past 5,000 years.
Here are some of the latest articles that have been added to the Marine Science channel on Newswise, a free source for media.
Orangutans, mice, and horses are covered with it, but humans aren’t. Why we have significantly less body hair than most other mammals has long remained a mystery. But a first-of-its-kind comparison of genetic codes from 62 animals is beginning to tell the story of how people—and other mammals—lost their locks.
Scientists have sequenced the genomes of Critically Endangered great hammerhead and Endangered shortfin mako sharks for the first time.
The number of fish species recorded in Madidi National Park and Natural Integrated Management Area (PNANMI), Bolivia has doubled to a staggering 333 species – with as many as 35 species new to science – according of a study conducted as part of the Identidad Madidi expedition led by the Wildlife Conservation Society.
It is now widely accepted that birds are descended from dinosaurs.
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have shown that zebrafish can provide genetic baz1b clues to the evolution of social behaviours in humans and domesticated species.
New research shows that glassfrogs—known for their highly transparent undersides and muscles—perform their “disappearing acts” by stowing away nearly all of their red blood cells into their uniquely reflective livers.
One-hundred fifty years ago, Charles Darwin speculated that life likely originated in a warm little pond. There, Darwin supposed, chemical reactions and the odd lightning strike might have led to chains of amino acids that, over time, became more and more complex until the beginnings of life emerged.Ever since, researchers have investigated this type of pre-life or “prebiotic” chemistry, trying to figure out the chemical pathways that could have led from a pool filled with simple amino acids to bacteria, redwood trees and people.
Preserved gut contents of Microraptor show the species had a more diverse diet than previously thought.
How did the complex organisms on Earth arise? This is one of the big open questions in biology. A collaboration between the working groups of Christa Schleper at the University of Vienna and Martin Pilhofer at ETH Zurich has come a step closer to the answer. The researchers succeeded in cultivating a special archaeon and characterizing it more precisely using microscopic methods.
Modern humans evolutionarily split from our chimpanzee ancestors nearly 7 million years ago, yet we are continuing to evolve.
Diving birds like penguins, puffins and cormorants may be more prone to extinction than non-diving birds, according to a new study by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath.
Human bipedalism – walking upright on two legs – may have evolved in trees, and not on the ground as previously thought, according to a new study involving UCL researchers.
Curtin University researchers have revealed how the pelvic fins of fish such as sharks and chimaeras have evolved from their sudden appearance in the fossil record over 410 million years ago.
Religion influences secondary school students’ understanding and acceptance of evolutionary theory, but social and cultural factors such as nationality, perceptions of science and household income are more influential, according to a study involving 5,500 Brazilian and Italian students aged 14-16. An article on the study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Discoveries at a major new fossil site in Morocco suggest giant arthropods – relatives of modern creatures including shrimps, insects and spiders – dominated the seas 470 million years ago.
If you thought Australia was home to only one ancient ‘giant wombat’, think again.
A team of researchers led by Narimane Chatar, a doctoral student at the EDDyLab of the University of Liège (Belgium), has tested the biting efficiency of Smilodon, an extinct species of carnivore close to the extant felines.
For over a century, one of the earliest human fossils ever discovered in Spain has been long considered a Neandertal. However, new analysis from an international research team, including scientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, dismantles this century-long interpretation, demonstrating that this fossil is not a Neandertal; rather, it may actually represent the earliest presence of Homo sapiens ever documented in Europe.
Here are some of the latest articles that have been added to the Behavioral Science channel on Newswise, a free source for journalists.
A specimen retrieved from a cupboard of the Natural History Museum in London has shown that modern lizards originated in the Late Triassic and not the Middle Jurassic as previously thought.
Bats use distinct structures in the larynx to produce high-frequency echolocation calls and lower-frequency social calls, according to a study.
The Field Museum in Chicago is home to the best, most-complete fossils of a prehistoric superpredator-- but one that lived hundreds of millions of years before SUE the T. rex. Whatcheeria was a six-foot-long lake-dwelling creature with a salamander-like body and a long, narrow head; its fossils were discovered in a limestone quarry near the town of What Cheer, Iowa.
The Darwin Online project at the National University of Singapore (NUS) released an exceptional manuscript handwritten by Charles Darwin in 1865. The manuscript has been placed on auction at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City, making international news. To understand this unique document, historian of science Dr John van Wyhe from the NUS Department of Biological Sciences, and founder and Director of Darwin Online, sheds light on the origins of the 157-year old manuscript, and why Darwin chose to handwrite the selected passage from Origin of Species.
A team of Duke researchers has identified a group of human DNA sequences driving changes in brain development, digestion and immunity that seem to have evolved rapidly after our family line split from that of the chimpanzees, but before we split with the Neanderthals.
The European robin’s closest relatives are found in tropical Africa. The European robin is therefore not closely related to the Japanese robin, despite their close similarity in appearance.
The contents of the last meal consumed by the earliest animals known to inhabit Earth more than 550 million years ago has unearthed new clues about the physiology of our earliest animal ancestors, according to scientists from The Australian National University (ANU).
Researchers show that great bustards in Spain prefer to eat two plant species with compounds active in vitro against protozoa, nematodes, and fungi: corn poppies and purple viper’s bugloss. Males, who spend much time and energy on sexual displays during the mating season, have a stronger preference for these plants than females, and more so during the mating season than at other times of the year. The authors thus consider great bustards as prime candidates for non-human animals that self-medicate, but stress that more research is needed to definitively prove this.
Earth is currently in the midst of a mass extinction, losing thousands of species each year. New research suggests environmental changes caused the first such event in history, which occurred millions of years earlier than scientists previously realized.
Capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.) are among only a few primates that use tools in day-to-day activities.
"If Charles Darwin had had the opportunity to dive off the Cape Verde Islands, he would have been completely thrilled", Eduardo Sampaio is convinced, because Darwin would have seen a fascinating, species-rich landscape.
The phrase “to swallow one’s tongue” has been around since at least the 1880s and has been repurposed in several languages to mean everything from falling silent to a general feeling of fear.
In two connected studies, cave ecologist Jut Wynne, along with dozens of co-authors including engineers, astrophysicists, astrobiologists and astronauts, lay out the research that needs to be done to get us closer to answering the old-age question about life beyond Earth.
An international study led by the medical Faculty of the University of Bonn has identified a gene that plays an important role in the development of the human embryo.
The wide expanse of an ancient lakebed in New Mexico holds the preserved footprints of life that roamed millennia ago. Giant sloths and mammoths left their mark, and alongside them, signs of our human ancestors.
The most famous fossils from the Cambrian explosion of animal life over half a billion years ago are very unlike their modern counterparts.
With wings spanning nearly 16 feet, a new species of pterosaurs has been identified from the Atlantic coast of Angola.
The Devonian Period, 419 to 358 million years ago, was one of the most turbulent times in Earth’s past and was marked by at least six significant marine extinctions, including one of the five largest mass extinctions ever to have occurred.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham have solved an important piece of the animal evolution puzzle, after a new study revealed that our ancient ancestors were more complex than originally thought.
The researcher and GRS Radioisotopes technician from the University of Seville, Jorge Rivera, has participated in an incredible discovery that is unique in Europe.
IUPUI scientists have found evidence that the evolution of tree roots over 300 million years ago triggered mass extinction events through the same chemical processes created by pollution in modern oceans and lakes.
An international research team led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has measured the size of a star dating back more than 11 billion years ago using images that show the evolution of the star exploding and cooling. The research could help scientists learn more about the early Universe.
For centuries, Indigenous communities in the American Southwest imported colorful parrots from Mexico.
While the physical differences between humans and non-human primates are quite distinct, a new study reveals their brains may be remarkably similar. And yet, the smallest changes may make big differences in developmental and psychiatric disorders.
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