Evolution

A new study, published in Science, analyzed regulatory elements in the vertebrate genome and found three waves of evolutionary innovation in the evolution of vertebrates. Many important evolutionary…

Can we stop the crap about "selfishness" and "altruism" when discussing animal behavior?  It's absolutely ridiculous the unnatural gyrations researchers go through to try and reconcile behaviors…

Anisogamy (see figure 1), or sexual reproduction in which two different gametes fuse to produce a new individual, leads to an inequality between female and male organisms. After all, females produce…

Where are we humans going, as a species? If science fiction is any guide, we will genetically evolve like in X-Men, become genetically engineered as in Gattaca, or become cybernetically enhanced like…

Molluscs are Marvellous! — as regular readers of “Squid-a-Day” will know. The recent presentation there of Celebrate Squid Babies brought to mind the following, from Darwin’s notebooks…

Evolutionary psychology is a field that examines human psychological traits through evolutionary glasses. Most human psychological traits are considered adaptations, the functional products of…

Human-like features of the feet and gait were in existence almost two million years earlier than previously thought, according to recent analysis of ancient footprints in Laetoli, Tanzania. Earlier…

Greetings,I came across this plot, and decided to post it here. Figure: Plot that shows the correlation between the percentage of the public the accepts evolution and the GDP per capita.(Source:…

Between Easter’s religious reminders and a molecular evolution class overdose of population genetics, I shouldn’t have been surprised to wake up yesterday from an unsettling dream about taking my…

Sex is costly. Yet it is widespread throughout the animal kingdom, so there must be some advantages to it. And still, it seems easier to list disadvantages. Sexual reproduction is complicated,…