Category Archives: Latest on Evolution

Life on Earth likely started 4.1 billion years ago, much earlier than scientists thought

UCLA geochemists have found evidence that life likely existed on Earth at least 4.1 billion years ago -- 300 million years earlier than previous research suggested. The discovery indicates that life may have begun shortly after the planet formed 4.54 billion years ago. The research is published today in the online early edition of the…

Asteroid impact, volcanism were one-two punch for dinosaurs

Berkeley geologists have uncovered compelling evidence that an asteroid impact on Earth 66 million years ago accelerated the eruptions of volcanoes in India for hundreds of thousands of years, and that together these planet-wide catastrophes caused the extinction of many land and marine animals, including the dinosaurs. For 35 years, paleontologists and geologists have debated…

How the enamel that coats your teeth evolved

The hardest bit of your body is the enamel coating your teeth. But new analyses of fish fossils, as well as genetic analyses of a living fish species, suggest that this specialized material once served a very different function: to toughen some bones and scales of ancient fish. The findings bolster earlier suggestions that ancient…

Stem cell research hints at evolution of human brain

The human cerebral cortex contains 16 billion neurons, wired together into arcane, layered circuits responsible for everything from our ability to walk and talk to our sense of nostalgia and drive to dream of the future. In the course of human evolution, the cortex has expanded as much as 1,000-fold, but how this occurred is…

‘Tree of life’ for 2.3 million species released

A first draft of the "tree of life" for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes -- from platypuses to puffballs -- has been released. A collaborative effort among eleven institutions, the tree depicts the relationships among living things as they diverged from one another over time, tracing back to…

New Human Species with Orange-Size Brain Discovered

A newly discovered extinct human species may be the most primitive unearthed yet, with a brain about the size of an orange. But despite its small brain size, the early human performed ritual burials of its dead, researchers say. This newfound species from South Africa, named Homo naledi, possessed an unusual mix of features, such…

Evolution, not just mutation, drives development of cancer

A paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues against the commonly held "accumulation of mutations" model of oncogenesis in favor of a model that depends on evolutionary pressures acting on populations of cells. Basically, the paper states that the ecosystem of a healthy tissue landscape lets healthy cells outcompete…

The Tree of Life may be more like a bush

New species evolve whenever a lineage splits off into several. Because of this, the kinship between species is often described in terms of a 'tree of life', where every branch constitutes a species. Now, researchers at Uppsala University have found that evolution is more complex than this model would have it, and that the tree…

The first four-legged fossil snake ever found is forcing scientists to rethink how snakes evolved from lizards. Although it has four legs, Tetrapodophis amplectus has other features that clearly mark it as a snake, says Nick Longrich, a palaeontologist at the University of Bath, UK, and one of the authors of a paper describing the animal in Science.…

The Devonian extinction saw the oceans choke to death

It was the age of fish. 360 million years ago, there were no large land animals, and the biggest animals were still in the oceans. One of the largest was Dunkleosteus. This was a sea monster like no other. Dunkleosteus was a powerful fish that grew up to 10m long and was covered with thick…