Category Archives: Latest on Evolution

New research details how a preserved fossil found in China could be the oldest record of post-natal parental care from the Middle Jurassic. The specimen, found by a farmer in China, is of an apparent family group with an adult, surrounded by six juveniles of the same species. Given that the smaller individuals are of…

Researchers have looked at a species of fish to help unravel one of the biggest mysteries in evolutionary biology. In many species of plants and animals, individuals from the same population often come in different color variants. But the mystery has remained as to why one color doesn't eventually replace the other through natural selection.…

Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), denizens of Arctic seas, are known to live more than 200 years, yet they show few signs of the age-related ailments that plague other animals, including humans. Even the bowhead’s closest cetacean relative, the much smaller minke whale, lives only 50 years. That suggests the larger whales (which have more than…

The relatively lightly built skeletons of modern humans developed late in evolutionary history, and may have been the result of a shift away from a nomadic lifestyle to a more settled one, according to a new study. These findings may shed light on modern bone conditions such asosteoporosis, the scientists said. Bone is one of…

Scientists have long wanted to know whether modern hands are related to the fins of fish, and now a new study finally reveals these structures are, indeed, related. Researchers compared the genetic sequence of an unusual freshwater fish with that of mice, and found that the genes involved in the development of the mice's hands…

Fossilized rod and cone cells — the kinds that help people see — have been discovered for the first time, researchers say. The finding reveals that such eye cells have existed for at least 300 million years, and that the ancient fish they were discovered in likely saw in color, according to the study's scientists.…

A high-powered laser in the Czech Republic has now provided provocative evidence that the hellish conditions produced when an asteroid or comet slams into Earth could have created some key building blocks of life on Earth. In a lab experiment intended to duplicate the high temperatures and pressures of such an impact, researchers used the…

His office is filled with all sorts of bird books, but Duke neuroscientist Erich Jarvis didn't become an expert on the avian family tree because of any particular interest in our feathered friends. Rather, it was his fascination with how the human brain understands and reproduces speech that brought him to the birds. Genes tell…

All ulticellular creatures are descended from single-celled organisms. The leap from unicellularity to multicellularity is possible only if the originally independent cells collaborate. So-called cheating cells that exploit the cooperation of others are considered a major obstacle. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, together with researchers from New Zealand and…