Evolution News

April 15, 2024

Top Headlines

Apr. 12, 2024 — A deep dive into macroalgae genetics has uncovered the genetic underpinnings that enabled macroalgae, or 'seaweed,' to evolve multicellularity. Three lineages of macroalgae developed multicellularity independently and during very different time ...

3D Mouth of an Ancient Jawless Fish Suggests They Were Filter-Feeders, Not Scavengers or Hunters

Apr. 10, 2024 — Early jawless fish were likely to have used bony projections surrounding their mouths to modify the mouth's shape while they collected food. Experts have used CT scanning techniques to build up the ...

The Evolving Attitudes of Gen X Toward Evolution

Apr. 10, 2024 — As the centennial of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 approaches, a new study illustrates that the attitudes of Americans in Generation X toward evolution shifted as they ...

Birdfeeders Are Designed to Keep Unwanted Guests Away

Apr. 9, 2024 — The first birdfeeders were made in the 19th century, and their design rapidly evolved during the 20th century. Researchers at the consider the evolution of the birdfeeder to be an example of multispecies design, where unwanted guests have shaped the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:53pm EDT

Geobiology: New Placozoan Habitat Discovered

Apr. 11, 2024 — Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of ...

Toothed Whale Echolocation Organs Evolved from Jaw Muscles

Apr. 8, 2024 — Genetic analysis finds evidence suggesting that acoustic fat bodies in the heads of toothed whales were once the muscles and bone marrow of the ...

In the Evolution of Walking, the Hip Bone Connected to the Rib Bones

Apr. 5, 2024 — A new reconstruction of the 375-million-year-old fossil fish Tiktaalik -- a close relative of limbed vertebrates -- used micro-CT to reveal bones still embedded in matrix. The reconstruction shows ...

Dinosaur Study Challenges Bergmann's Rule

Apr. 5, 2024 — A new study calls into question Bergmann's rule, an 1800s-era scientific principle stating that animals in high-latitude, cooler climates tend to be larger than close relatives living in warmer ...

We've Had Bird Evolution All Wrong

Apr. 1, 2024 — Genomic anamolies dating back to the time of the dinosaurs misled scientists about the evolutionary history of ...

Natural Recycling at the Origin of Life

Mar. 22, 2024 — How was complex life able to develop on the inhospitable early Earth? At the beginning there must have been ribonucleic acid (RNA) to carry the first genetic information. To build up complexity in ...

Rays Were More Diverse 150 Million Years Ago Than Previously Thought

Mar. 21, 2024 — Scientists have explored the puzzling world of rays that lived 150 million years ago and discovered a previously hidden diversity -- including a new ray species. This study significantly expands the ...

Persian Plateau Unveiled as Crucial Hub for Early Human Migration out of Africa

Mar. 25, 2024 — A new study combining genetic, palaeoecological, and archaeological evidence has unveiled the Persian Plateau as a pivotal geographic location ...

Across Oceans and Millennia: Decoding the Origin and History of the Bottle Gourd

Mar. 20, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered intriguing details about the origins and spread of the bottle gourd, one of the oldest domesticated crops. Their work ...

Tanks of the Triassic: New Crocodile Ancestor Identified

Mar. 18, 2024 — Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic came in a variety of shapes and sizes ...

Gene Flow in Giraffes and What It Means for Their Conservation

Mar. 12, 2024 — Giraffes, with their bizarre body plan, have always held a special place in the minds of evolutionary biologists and non-experts alike. In a new study whole-genome sequencing data was used to ...

New Study Discovers How Altered Protein Folding Drives Multicellular Evolution

Mar. 8, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a mechanism steering the evolution of multicellular life. They identified how altered protein folding drives multicellular ...

Modeling the Origins of Life: New Evidence for an 'RNA World'

Mar. 4, 2024 — Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies ...

An Evolutionary Mystery 125 Million Years in the Making

Mar. 4, 2024 — Plant biologists have uncovered an evolutionary mystery over 100 million years in the making. It turns out that sometime during the last 125 million years, tomatoes and Arabidopsis thaliana plants ...

Change in Gene Code May Explain How Human Ancestors Lost Tails

Feb. 28, 2024 — A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like ...

Killer Instinct Drove Evolution of Mammals' Predatory Ancestors

Feb. 22, 2024 — The evolutionary success of the first large predators on land was driven by their need to improve as killers, researchers ...

Snakes Do It Faster, Better: How a Group of Scaly, Legless Lizards Hit the Evolutionary Jackpot

Feb. 22, 2024 — More than 100 million years ago, the ancestors of the first snakes were small lizards that lived alongside other small, nondescript lizards in the shadow of the ...

Butterfly and Moth Genomes Mostly Unchanged Despite 250 Million Years of Evolution

Feb. 21, 2024 — Comparison of over 200 high-quality butterfly and moth genomes reveals key insights into their biology, evolution and diversification over the last 250 million years, as well as clues for ...

An Awkward Family Reunion: Sea Monsters Are Our Cousins

Feb. 21, 2024 — The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study discovered that the hindbrain -- the part of the brain controlling ...

Ancient Retroviruses Played a Key Role in the Evolution of Vertebrate Brains

Feb. 15, 2024 — Researchers report that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or ...

A Lighthouse in the Gobi Desert

Feb. 14, 2024 — A new study explores the weight great fossil sites have on our understanding of evolutionary relationships between fossil groups and quantified the power these sites have on our understanding of ...

The Hidden Rule for Flight Feathers -- And How It Could Reveal Which Dinosaurs Could Fly

Feb. 12, 2024 — Scientists examined hundreds of birds in museum collections and discovered a suite of feather characteristics that all flying birds have in common. These 'rules' provide clues as to how the ...

Harnessing Human Evolution to Advance Precision Medicine

Feb. 9, 2024 — Scientists hope to advance precision medicine through the discovery of a gene variant that leads to the same phenotype in separate high-dwelling populations while taking a different evolutionary ...

Dinosaurs' Success Helped by Specialized Stance and Gait, Study Finds

Feb. 7, 2024 — Dinosaurs' range of locomotion made them incredibly adaptable, researchers have ...

Innovation in Stone Tool Technology Involved Multiple Stages at the Time of Modern Human Dispersals

Feb. 7, 2024 — A new study illuminates the cultural evolution that took place approximately 50,000 to 40,000 years ago, coinciding with the dispersals of Homo sapiens across Eurasia. The insights gleaned from their ...

New Species of Jurassic Pterosaur Discovered on the Isle of Skye

Feb. 5, 2024 — A new species of pterosaur from specimens found on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, has been ...

Rare 3D Fossils Show That Some Early Trees Had Forms Unlike Any You've Ever Seen

Feb. 2, 2024 — In the fossil record, trees typically are preserved with only their trunks. They don't usually include any leaves to show what their canopies and overall forms may have looked like. In a new ...

Scientists Pinpoint Growth of Brain's Cerebellum as Key to Evolution of Bird Flight

Jan. 30, 2024 — Evolutionary biologists report they have combined PET scans of modern pigeons along with studies of dinosaur fossils to help answer an enduring question in biology: How did the brains of birds evolve ...

How Did Humans Learn to Walk? New Evolutionary Study Offers an Earful

Jan. 29, 2024 — A new study, which centers on evidence from skulls of a 6-million-year-old fossil ape, Lufengpithecus, offers important clues about the origins of bipedal locomotion courtesy of a novel method: ...

DNA from Preserved Feces Reveals Ancient Japanese Gut Environment

Jan. 24, 2024 — DNA from ancient feces can offer archaeologists new clues about the life and health of Japanese people who lived thousands of years ago, according to a new ...