Ancient Crocodile Reveals the Humble Beginnings of the Apex Predator
The mouth of today’s crocodilians inspires fear and awe, with their wide gape and the greatest known bite force in the vertebrate animal kingdom. However,…
Evolutionary Biology
Earth’s First Diverse Marine Predators Produced Killer Babies
Some of the earliest predators that patrolled the oceans over 500 million years ago are also some of the largest animals to have lived at…
Mechanical Forces Can Contribute to Gene Expression During Development
During embryonic development genetic cascades control gene activity and cell differentiation. In a new publication of the journal PNAS, the team of Ulrich Technau of…
Scientists Demonstrate How Primordial Life on Earth Replicated
Scientists have created a new type of genetic replication system which demonstrates how the first life on Earth – in the form of RNA –…
Turtle and Lizard Brains Shed Light on Human Brain Evolution
Our cerebral cortex, a sheet of neurons, connections and circuits, comprises “ancient” regions such as the hippocampus and “new” areas such as the six-layered “neocortex”,…
Biologists Reveal How Marine Fish Won An Evolutionary Lottery
Most marine fish, including tuna, belong to a group called acanthomorphs, which experienced an explosion of diversity after an asteroid crash 66 million years ago….
Researchers Discover Switchblade-Like Defensive System in Stonefish
In dark alleys of the Pacific and Indian oceans, new research shows some of the deadliest, armored fishes on the planet are packing switchblades in…
Why Expressive Eyebrows Mattered in Human Evolution
New research from the University of York suggests that highly mobile eyebrows, which can be used to express a wide range of subtle emotions, may…
Scientists Identify Key Ingredients When First Organisms Appeared on Earth
Large concentrations of sulfites and bisulfites in shallow lakes may have set the stage for Earth’s first biological molecules. Around 4 billion years ago, Earth…
Whale Genome Reveals Extraordinary Evolutionary History
For the first time, scientists of the German Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, Goethe University and the University of Lund in Sweden have deciphered…
New Harvard Exhibit Shows the Beauty of the Microscopic Universe Around Us
The expressions “Wash your hands” and “Home, sweet home” have more in common than you’d think. A whole universe more. The value of using soap…
Four-Eyed Lizard Provides a New Wrinkle in Eyesight Evolution
Researchers have found an ancient monitor lizard with a fourth eye — a discovery that may signal a new wrinkle in the way eyesight evolved…
New Discovery Suggests All Life May Share This Common Design Principle
By studying bacteria and yeast, researchers at MIT have discovered that vastly different types of cells still share fundamental similarities, conserved across species and refined…
Researchers Reveal Human Threats to the Amphibian Tree of Life
A new study by researchers at Yale and George Washington University examines the human threats to the amphibian family tree and calls for a rethinking…
New Dating Techniques Show Germany Was Covered by Glaciers 450,000 Years Ago
Using state-of-the-art dating techniques researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have obtained new chronological data for the timing of…
New Evidence of Early Human Innovation Pushes Back Evolutionary Timeline
An international collaboration, including the Natural History Museum of Utah at the University of Utah, has discovered that early humans in eastern Africa had—by about…
New Species of Fish Filled the Ocean 66 Million Years Ago
As dinosaurs and huge ocean predators disappeared 66 million years ago in a mass extinction event, lineages that comprise the bulk of marine fish species…
Scientists Reveal the Genetic Timeline of Ancient Vanuatu People
Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have helped put together the most comprehensive study ever conducted into the origins of people in Vanuatu –…