DNA Could Predate Existence of Life As We Know It
Chemists are close to showing that DNA could form spontaneously from chemicals which were present during primordial Earth. If they succeed, the work could imply…
Evolution
Improved Estimates of DNA’s Mutation Rate Paint Clearer Picture of Human Prehistory
Since the 1960s, DNA has changed the story of human ancestry. Some studies have shown that all modern humans are descended from ancestors who lived…
Fossil Discovery Captures a Previously Unseen Stage in the Evolution of Ancient Arthropods
A new fossil discovery captures a previously unseen stage in the evolution of ancient arthropods, providing confirmation of the loss of a limb branch during…
How Aerosol Particles form in the Amazon
To better understand how aerosol particles form in the Amazon, an international team of scientists analyzed samples of naturally formed aerosols collected deep in the…
Analysis of Ancient Hair Could Reveal How People Adjusted to Past Climate Change
Stable isotope analysis of ancient Eskimo hair found in Western Alaska could reveal how people in the region lived through times of climate change and…
Genome Study Links Paternal Age to Conditions Such As Autism
J.B.S. Haldane proposed in the 1930s that children might inherit more mutations from their fathers than their mothers. This year, thanks to whole-genome sequencing of…
Biologists Create Computational Model of Gene Networks
By translating their biological knowledge into very simple Boolean statements, biologists at the California Institute of Technology have created the first predictive computational model of…
Disease Mapping Methods Indicate That Indo-European Languages Originated From Anatolia
Diverse languages, from English to Hindi, can trace their roots back 8,000 years to Anatolia (Asia Minor), a region that’s centered around modern-day Turkey. The…
Felix Pharand-Deschenes Maps Human Influence On Earth
Canadian scientists Felix Pharand-Deschenes used satellite images to map the human influence on Earth, depicting how much it has changed, as seen from space. Pharand-Deschenes…
Amino Acids in Meteorites Provide a Clue to How Life Turned Left
By analyzing the amino acids in meteorites, NASA and University scientists have developed one possible explanation for why all known life uses only left-handed versions…
Alterations in Seawater Chemistry Linked with Past Climate Change
A new study found that dissolution or creation of huge gypsum deposits changed sulfate content of the oceans, which resulted in drastic changes in seawater…
Insects Help Scientists Understand the Predictability of Evolution
A newly published study by Cornell scientists details how they examined insect species that feed on plants containing powerful toxins called cardenolides to better under…
Hybridization Leads to New Pathogen Species
A newly published study from scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg and Aarhus University in Denmark shows that new fungi,…
Rediscovery Sheds New Light on the Behavior of the Proboscis Anole
A team of scientists, encouraged by a handful of sightings, traveled to Mindo looking for a lizard once thought to be close to extinction –…
Female Butterflies Prefer Flashier Mates
A new study from evolutionary biologists at Yale University examined the butterfly species Bicyclus anynana and their mating patterns, finding that female butterflies of the…
Horizontal Gene Transfer Between Plants is More Widespread than Previously Thought
While studying the parasitic “corpse flower” of Southeast Asia, researchers from Harvard and Stony Brook University found that horizontal gene transfer between plants is much…
Research Shows that American Heads are Getting Larger
New research from anthropologists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville found that white American skulls are becoming larger, taller, and narrower as seen from the…
Evolution Shapes Ecology of Dammed Connecticut Lakes
In a newly published study, Yale biologists describe how dams built 300 years ago in Colonial times fundamentally changed the structure of the alewife, the…