Evolution

Evolution Is Driven By Gene Regulation

It is not just what’s in your genes, it’s how you turn them on that accounts for the difference between species — at least in yeast — according to a report by Yale researchers in this week’s issue of Science. “We’ve known for a while that the protein codin ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 9 2007 - 3:17pm

Gene Regulation Sets Humans Apart

Humans and chimpanzees share 99 percent of their genetic makeup but how those genes are used is the key difference, say Duke researchers. In two major traits that set humans apart from chimps and other primates – those involving brains and diet – gene regu ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 12 2007 - 2:29pm

Did Men's Faces Evolve To Be More Attractive To Women?

Men really only think about women, it seems, even to the point of evolving to be more attractive to them. Men with large jaws, flaring cheeks and large eyebrows are sexy, at least in the eyes of our ancestors, researchers at the Natural History Museum have ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 13 2007 - 10:51am

Fossil Tracks Suggest Dinosaurs Could Swim

Ancient footprints have provided compelling evidence that some dinosaurs were able to swim. The 15m (50ft) trackway was discovered in the Cameros Basin in Spain, which, 125 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous was a vast lake. ...

Article - Sarda Sahney - Aug 14 2007 - 6:10pm

Adaptation Drives African Fishes Along Different Evolutionary Paths

Natural selection has driven two closely related species of fish in Lake Malawi down different evolutionary paths- even though they live side by side. An international team of scientists from Canada (Université Laval), the U.K. (University of Hull, Cardiff ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 16 2007 - 12:48am

Evolution Rewards Cheating So How Does Cooperation Persist?

Cooperation is widespread in the natural world but so too are cheats – mutants that do not contribute to the collective good but simply reap the benefits of others’ cooperative efforts. In evolutionary terms, cheats should indeed prosper, so how cooperatio ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 24 2007 - 8:03pm

Why Men Matter In Evolution

Dating younger women is not just about trophy wives, say the researchers behind the PLoS paper, "Why Men Matter: Mating Patterns Drive Evolution of Human Lifespan." It's also about understaning evolution. Male reproduction begins and ends la ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 29 2007 - 11:09am

An Evolution Reason Men Should Date Younger Women

In evolutionary terms, the difference between 2.1 and 2.2 children is a lot more important than the small difference sounds, especially as it accumulates over time. A new study in Royal Society Biology Letters says that achieving that maximum offspring cou ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 29 2007 - 4:05pm

Evolution Of Genomic Imprinting- It's Not Sex Chromosomes

How we come to express the genes of one parent over the other is now better understood through studying the platypus and marsupial wallaby – and it doesn’t seem to have originated in association with sex chromosomes. New research published in BMC Evolution ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 5 2007 - 5:41pm

Did Climate Change Kill Neanderthals? Unlikely, Says Study

What killed the Neanderthals? No one can say for sure but an international study led by the University of Leeds has ruled out one of the popular recent theories, catastrophic climate change, as the most likely cause. The bones of more than 400 Neanderthals ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 12 2007 - 5:47pm