Three distinct phases of climate variability in eastern Africa coincided with shifts in hominin evolution and dispersal over the last 620,000 years, an analysis of environmental proxies from a lake sediment record has revealed.
In 2012, a crop of California's most prized ornamental trees was overrun by an invisible invader.
Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of algae called Protocodium sinense which predates the origin of land plants and modern animals and provides new insight into the early diversification of the plant kingdom.
There are no statistically significant differences in key factors of population growth - breeding, birth, survival, life span and death - between dehorned or horned black rhinos new research, conducted by the University of Bristol Vet School, Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, and Save the Rhino Trust has found.
The genetic fingerprint of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis shows that the members of this evolutionarily very old animal phylum use the same gene cascades for the differentiation of neuronal cell types as more complex organisms. These genes are also responsible for the balance of all cells in the organism throughout the anemone’s life. The results were published by a team of developmental biologists led by Ulrich Technau of the University of Vienna in "Cell Reports".
Famous for their eight arms, octopuses leverage all of their appendages to move, jet through the water and capture prey. But their movements can look awkward and seemingly unplanned at times, more closely resembling aliens than earthly creatures.
When it comes to showing affection towards people, many dogs are naturals. Now comes word reported in the journal Ecology and Evolution on September 20th that the remarkable ability to show attachment behaviour toward human caregivers also exists in wolves.
Vampire bats infected with the rabies virus aren’t likely to act stereotypically “rabid,” according to a new study – instead, infected male bats tended to withdraw socially, scaling back on the common habit of grooming each other before they died of the disease.
Desert isopods might not make top of the list of most-endearing animals, but these small (up to two centimeters-long) creatures, with their segmented bodies and seven pairs of legs, are actually fascinating animals and ideal to study when looking at mating preferences.
Smithsonian researchers have discovered a new extinct species of lizard-like reptile that belongs to the same ancient lineage as New Zealand’s living tuatara.
The Archean basement rocks are suitable candidates for modeling the generation and evolution of the early continental crust as they archive the early earth processes in their rock record.
A new research conducted by two paleontologists at the University of Malaga has just revealed that human evolution uniquely combines an increase in brain size with the acquisition of an increasingly juvenile cranial shape.
Brain organoids provide insights into the evolution of the human brain.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that it will support the efforts of a collaborative group of researchers, led by Elizabeth Vierling, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who plan to spend the next four years investigating the role that mitochondria play in plant productivity.
If evolutionary biologist Terence D. Capellini were to rank the body parts that make us quintessentially human, the pelvis would place close to the top.
Why do some plants grow into large woody shrubs or colossal trees, while others remain small and never produce wood in their stems?
The skulls of tetrapods had fewer bones than extinct and living fish, limiting their evolution for millions of years, according to a latest study.
Researchers have run through near-perfect fossils of the World’s first gliding reptile with a fine-toothed comb and untangled hitherto unknown facets to discover it was a change in tree canopy which likely facilitated such flight in these creatures.
Lugging around a tapeworm that’s one third your body weight can be a real drag.
The question of what makes modern humans unique has long been a driving force for researchers. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Neandertals, therefore provide fascinating insights.
1 in 5 adult female white-necked jacobin hummingbirds look like males. New research from the University of Washington shows that this is a rare case of "deceptive mimicry" within a species: Females with male-like plumage are trying to pass themselves off as males, and receive a benefit in the form of reduced aggression.
Using stool samples from Viking latrines, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have genetically mapped one of the oldest human parasites – the whipworm.
A team of researchers at Iowa State University are part of a multi-state effort to map out where the federally endangered rusty patched bumble bee lives, identify what habitat it prefers and collect clues about the population’s genetic diversity and overall health. The findings, along with data about the threatened American bumble bee, could help wildlife managers and land stewards reverse their decline and support other pollinators more broadly.
These days, dragons are keeping Game of Thrones fans on their toes. But they are also providing important insights into vertebrate brain evolution, as revealed by the work of Max Planck scientists on the brain of the Australian bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps.
Did the first ancestors of whales pick up where the mosasaurs left off 66 million years ago, after the extinction of all the large predatory marine reptiles?
The greatest diversity of life is not counted in the number of species, says Utah State University evolutionary geneticist Zachariah Gompert, but in the diversity of interactions among them.
Scientists studying mice from the Andes Mountains in Patagonia noticed something they couldn’t explain: the mice from the western side of the mountains were bigger than the ones from the east, but DNA said that they were all from the same species.
The name given to the new species and genus is †Desyopone hereon gen. et sp. nov. In this way, the scientists are honouring the two research institutions involved – DESY and Hereon – which contributed significantly to this find with the help of modern imaging techniques.
An international team has discovered and named eight new day gecko species from Madagascar, and each of them is no longer than your pointer finger.
The latest research on plants brought to you by Newswise.
In 2004, construction workers in Norwich, UK, unearthed human skeletal remains that led to a historical mystery—at least 17 bodies at the bottom of a medieval well.
Beetles of the genus Lagria need a little help from their bacterial friends throughout their immature life stages. But keeping them in the same spot throughout life isn't feasible.
Evolutionary chromosomal changes may take a million years in nature, but researchers are now reporting a novel technique enabling programmable chromosome fusion that has successfully produced mice with genetic changes that occur on a million-year evolutionary scale in the laboratory.
Research published this week in Science offers the clearest picture yet of the reverberating consequences of land mammal declines on food webs over the past 130,000 years.
What makes the human brain distinct from that of all other animals — including even our closest primate relatives?
The discovery by researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) of three bodies on Indonesia’s Alor Island, dating from 7,500 to 13,000 years ago, sheds new light on burial practices and migration of the earliest humans in island Southeast Asia.
In a trio of papers, published simultaneously in the journal Science, Ron Pinhasi from the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology and Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences (HEAS) at the University of Vienna and Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg from the University of Vienna and Harvard University, Iosif Lazaridis and David Reich at Harvard University—together with 202 co-authors—report a massive effort of genome-wide sequencing from 727 distinct ancient individuals with which it was possible to test longstanding archaeological, genetic and linguistic hypotheses. They present a systematic picture of the interlinked histories of peoples across the Southern Arc Region from the origins of agriculture, to late medieval times.
A new analysis of a beaver anklebone fossil found in Montana suggests the evolution of semi-aquatic beavers may have occurred at least 7 million years earlier than previously thought, and happened in North America rather than Eurasia.
Oxytocin’s role in group relations may be shared with both of our closest evolutionary relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees. The team tested their hypothesis by using eye tracking technology that compared a subject's attention to side-by-side images of out-group and in-group counterparts. The findings revealed that oxytocin promoted out-group attention across the two species.
Earth’s geological history is characterized by many dynamic climate shifts that are often associated with large changes in temperature.
The latest research and expert commentary on the monkeypox outbreak.
Likely to survive in the oral cavity, bacteria evolved to divide along their longitudinal axis without parting from one another. A research team co-led by environmental cell biologist Silvia Bulgheresi from the University of Vienna and microbial geneticist Frédéric Veyrier from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) just published their new insights in Nature Communications. In their work, they de-scribed the division mode of these caterpillar-like bacteria and their evolution from a rod-shaped ancestor. They propose to establish Neisseriaceae oral bacteria as new model organisms that could help pinpoint new antimicrobial targets.
Just over 250 million years ago during the end of the Permian period and start of the Triassic, reptiles had one heck of a coming out party.
Two novel hypotheses have been proposed that address the “two-fold cost of sex”: one of the biggest enigmas in the evolution of sexual reproduction.
The reconstructed megadolon (Otodus megalodon) was 16 meters long and weighed over 61 tons. It was estimated that it could swim at around 1.4 meters per second, require over 98,000 kilo calories every day and have stomach volume of almost 10,000 liters.
Lungs are essential to many vertebrates including humans. However, four living amphibian clades have independently eliminated pulmonary respiration and lack lungs, breathing primarily through their wet skin. Little is known of the developmental basis of lung loss in these clades.
An international team of researchers have discovered that a mysterious microscopic creature from which humans were thought to descend is part of a different family tree.
New research based on an expedition to the icy waters off Greenland reveals soaring levels of antifreeze proteins in a species of tiny snailfish, underlying the importance of this unique adaptation to life in sub-zero temperatures.
When sexual conflict results in reproductive strategies that only benefit one of the sexes, it may result in evolutionary arms races. Male spiders have evolved behavioural mating strategies to improve their chances of mating despite the risk of being cannibalised by their mates.Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have discovered that male spiders make choices on maximising their mating success when they are at risk of being cannibalised by their female mates.
Researchers have found that small mammal communities today are fundamentally different from even a few centuries ago, during North America’s pre-colonial past.
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