Evolution

Were Neanderthals direct ancestors of contemporary humans or an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out? This is one of the enduring questions in human evolution as scientists explore the…

Embryologists at University College London have helped solve an evolutionary riddle that has been puzzling scientists for over a century. They have identified a key mechanism in the initial stages of…

An extraordinary advance in human origins research reveals evidence of the emergence of the upright human body plan over 15 million years earlier than most experts have believed. More dramatically,…

Which came first, the chicken genome or the egg genome? Researchers have answered a similarly vexing (and far more relevant) genomic question: Which of the thousands of long stretches of repeated DNA…

two closely related bird species, the collared flycatcher and the pied flycatcher, can reproduce with each other, but the females are more strongly attracted to a male of their own species. This has…

Scientists at the University of Missouri-St. Louis used DNA sequences from feather lice to study how island populations of their host, the Galápagos Hawk might have colonized the Galápagos islands,…

Chips from 10 million years ago have revealed new insights into fish diets and their influence on fish evolution, according to new research. The chips were found, along with scratches, on the teeth…

As I’m having a baby my mind has recently been turned to thoughts of the very weird and wonderful world of developmental biology. As a new parent tracks the progress of their child, you can’t help…

An interesting Economist article about sex differences in a visual task calls an evolutionary explanation a “just-so story.” I don’t know if the late Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary theorist, Harvard…

It seems the evolution versus creationism debate will never end. Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist from University College London will address delegates at the 7th annual University College Dublin-…