Yale Biologists Examine Long-Standing Genetics Mystery
Researchers discover several genes whose evolution appears to have been critical to the divergence of humans from their common ancestor with chimpanzees. What makes humans…
evolutionary biology
Harvard Study Offers New Insight on Height and Arthritis
New research reveals a genetic “switch” that changes the activity of a key skeletal gene related to height, and pinpoints a variant in the switch…
Yale Study Examines Evolutionary Cradle for Antarctica Marine Life
New research from Yale University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences reveals that the largely barren islands reaching north from Antarctica are actually…
Yale Study Shows Gradual Environmental Change is an Ally to Viral Pathogens
New research shows that with more time, viruses have the luxury to infect the old host while exploring adaptive tweaks to infect a new host….
Genomic Regions That Set Humans Apart From Other Primates Carry Many Autism-Linked Mutations
New research from Harvard Medical School suggests that mutations in genetic regulatory elements may be important in both autism spectrum disorder and human evolution. Small…
New Research Shows Neanderthals Were Born with Wide Bodies and Robust Bones
Scientists investigated whether the differences in physique between Neanderthals and modern humans are genetic or caused by differences in lifestyle, finding that Neanderthals’ wide bodies…
Yale Biologists Solve the Mystery of the Tully Monster
A newly published study from Yale University reveals that the Tully Monster had gills and a notochord, which functioned as a rudimentary spinal cord. The…
Was Frozen Mammoth or Giant Ground Sloth Served for Dinner?
A famous dinner for scientists in the 1950s supposedly served meat from a woolly mammoth that was discovered frozen in the arctic. Yale scientists obtained…
New Yale Study Links Childbearing to Accelerated Aging
New research from Yale University reveals the first evidence that childbearing may cause accelerated aging in women. The researchers tested 100 healthy postmenopausal women from…
New Study Shows Neanderthals Boosted Our Immune System
A new study from the Max Planck Institute reveals that the mixing of archaic human forms played an important role in shaping the immune system…
Bacteria Can Be Spatially Excluded from the Exchange of Amino Acids
New research shows that bacteria, which reciprocally exchange amino acids, stabilize their partnership on two-dimensional surfaces and limit the access of non-cooperating bacteria to the…
New Model Maps the Development of Stem Cells in the Human Body
Using the telomeres on the chromosomes of blood cells, scientists have designed a mathematical model for mapping the development of populations of haematopoietic stem cells…
Scientists Reveal Catalog of Human Genetic Variation
Newly published research details the effects of human genetic variation, finding that each person possesses on average about 150 variants capable of disabling genes. A…
Harvard Examines the Response to Light and Temperature Shifts in Northeastern Forests
Biologists from Harvard University are examining whether the earlier arrival of warm weather will clash with genetic programming of plants. Harvard scientists are taking a…
Scientists Discover A New Species of Hominin
An international team of scientists has discovered a new species of a new species of hominin in South Africa that may have existed alongside modern…
Turtles Share a Recent Common Ancestor with Birds and Crocodiles
New fossil evidence reveals that turtles share a recent common ancestor with birds and crocodiles. There’s a twist in the turtle timeline. Thanks to new…
Pentecopterus – A Giant Sea Scorpion from the Prehistoric Seas
Geologists discovered the fossils of Pentecopterus in a meteorite crater by the Upper Iowa River in northeastern Iowa. You don’t name a sea creature after…
Fossils Reveal Dogs Evolved as the Climate Changed
A new study from Brown University shows how dogs evolved in response to changes in climate over the last 40 million years, demonstrating that predators…