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Tiny fossils found in China appear to be 500-million-year-old embryos

Tiny fossils found in China appear to be 500-million-year-old embryos
Tiny, spherical fossils found in southern China appear to be the embryos of a previously unknown animal. The fossils come from the Cambrian, a period dating from 540 million to 485 million years ago and known for an explosion of diversity. Some of the organisms that appeared during the Cambrian, such as the bug-like trilobite,…
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Drunken Monkeys: Does Alcoholism Have an Evolutionary Basis?

Drunken Monkeys: Does Alcoholism Have an Evolutionary Basis?
As the child of an alcoholic father, Robert Dudley long wondered what caused the destructive allure of alcohol. Then while working in the Panamanian forest as a biologist, Dudley saw monkeys eating ripe fruit, which likely contained small amounts of the stuff, and an answer occurred to him: Maybe alcoholism is an evolutionary hangover. Had…
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Salamanders Shrink as Climate Heats Up

Salamanders Shrink as Climate Heats Up
Wild salamanders that live in the Appalachian Mountains are shrinking because they must burn more energy as the local climate gets hotter and drier, according to a new study. Researchers found that the salamanders they collected between 1980 and 2012 were 8 percent smaller than those collected in earlier decades, starting in 1957. The findings…
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Finding Your Inner Fish

Finding Your Inner Fish
Dr. Neil Shubin, an Univeristy of Chicago Evolutionary Paleontologist explains how we all contain over 3.5 million years of history in every part of our human bodies. Learn how this fascinating history unfolded in this installment of the Darwin Evolves series from UCLA. Series: Darwin Evolving.  
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4-Eyed Daddy Longlegs Helps Explain Arachnid Evolution

4-Eyed Daddy Longlegs Helps Explain Arachnid Evolution
The ancient ancestors of today's harvestmen, the spider-like arachnids sometimes called "daddy longlegs," had not just one, but two sets of eyes, a newfound fossil reveals. The recent discovery of this harvestman fossil in eastern France may shed light on the evolution of these arachnids, which can be found on every continent except Antarctica, the…
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Living organ regenerated for first time: Thymus rebuilt in mice

Living organ regenerated for first time: Thymus rebuilt in mice
A team of scientists at the University of Edinburgh has succeeded in regenerating a living organ for the first time. The team rebuilt the thymus -- an organ in the body located next to the heart that produces important immune cells. Immune repair The advance could pave the way for new therapies for people with…
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Tiny, Logical Robots Injected into Cockroaches

Tiny, Logical Robots Injected into Cockroaches
Nanotechnology just got a little bit smarter. At the Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, Ido Bachelet led a team of scientists in building tiny robots that can respond to chemical cues and operate inside a living animal. More than that, they can operate as logic gates, essentially acting as real…
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A Cure for Ageing? David Sinclair talks about the fight against aging

A Cure for Ageing? David Sinclair talks about the fight against aging
Can we really cure ageing? David Sinclair thinks so, and he's going to try to prove it. David Sinclair is a scientist and entrepreneur working on increasing human health, productivity, and lifespan. After co-discovering a molecular cause of aging at the Massachusetts Institute in Boston in the mid-1990s, he joined the faculty of Harvard Medical…
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BIOESSAYS: Why do the well-fed appear to die young?

BIOESSAYS: Why do the well-fed appear to die young?
Dietary restriction adaptively up-regulates cellular recycling mechanisms (e.g. autophagy, apoptosis) to increase resource efficiency and promote immediate reproduction. Old-age pathologies, such as cancer, are reduced as a side effect, extending lifespan in benign laboratory environments. Such benefits are unlikely to translate to the wild, where extrinsic mortality risk is high. In this video, Margo Adler…
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