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Evolution news
Scientists construct organo-phosphatic shells of brachiopods
Biomineralized columns, stacked in layers like a sandwich gave Cambrian brachiopod shells their strength and flexibility 520 million years ago.
Evolution
Apr 18, 2024
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Instinct for 'fight or flight' may be much older than we thought
Evidence in lampreys for the presence of a rudimentary sympathetic nervous system, previously thought to be unique to jawed vertebrates, has been presented in Nature. The finding may prompt a rethink of the origins of the ...
Evolution
Apr 18, 2024
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41
Researchers identify genetic variant that helped shape human skull base evolution
Humans, Homo sapiens, have unique features compared with other closely related hominin species and primates, including the shape of the base of the skull. The evolutionary changes underlying these features were significant ...
Evolution
Apr 17, 2024
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57
Mountain chickadees have remarkable memories. A new study explains why
Lost your keys? Can't remember where you parked the car? If only you had the memory of a mountain chickadee.
Plants & Animals
Apr 17, 2024
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83
How interspecies competition led to a 'bizarre' pattern in our own evolutionary tree
Competition between species played a major role in the rise and fall of hominins—and produced a "bizarre" evolutionary pattern for the Homo lineage—according to a new University of Cambridge study that revises the start ...
Evolution
Apr 17, 2024
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143
Marine plankton behavior could predict future marine extinctions, study finds
Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth's warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event.
Evolution
Apr 17, 2024
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Amazon butterflies show how new species can evolve from hybridization
If evolution was originally depicted as a tree, with different species branching off as new blooms, then new research shows how the branches may actually be more entangled. In "Hybrid speciation driven by multilocus introgression ...
Evolution
Apr 17, 2024
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Discovery of bacterial proteins that induce asexual reproduction in insects
From microbes in the human gut to symbiotic algae in coral reefs, research in recent decades has increasingly revealed the pivotal roles that microorganisms (or microbial species) play in shaping the biology of host organisms ...
Evolution
Apr 17, 2024
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New study sheds light on the structure and evolution of an enzyme in psychoactive fungi
An international research team has investigated the biosynthesis of psilocybin, the main ingredient of hallucinogenic mushrooms. They gained new insights into the structure and reaction mechanism of the enzyme PsiM. It plays ...
Evolution
Apr 16, 2024
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14
How do Australia's desert animals avoid inbreeding during dry spells?
Some Australian desert mammals use distinct strategies to promote evolutionary fitness in response to changing environmental conditions over short timescales, according to a new study.
Evolution
Apr 16, 2024
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Seed ferns experimented with complex leaf vein networks 201 million years ago, paleontologists find
According to a research team led by paleontologists from the University of Vienna, the net-like leaf veining typical for today's flowering plants developed much earlier than previously thought, but died out again several ...
Evolution
Apr 16, 2024
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114
Researchers clarify cryptic differentiation within enigmatic hemiparasitic love vine Cassytha filiformis
The widespread hemiparasitic Lauraceae genus Cassytha currently contains 19 described species, one variety and four forms. This genus is controversial and has not been satisfactorily resolved. Cassytha filiformis is cosmopolitan ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 15, 2024
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Evolution's recipe book: How 'copy paste' errors led to insect flight, octopus camouflage and human cognition
Seven hundred million years ago, a remarkable creature emerged for the first time. Though it may not have been much to look at by today's standards, the animal had a front and a back, a top and a bottom. This was a groundbreaking ...
Evolution
Apr 15, 2024
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Macroalgae genetics study sheds light on how seaweed became multicellular
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 ...
Evolution
Apr 12, 2024
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111
Cannibalism and genome duplication in nematodes
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology have produced intriguing evidence of how environmental factors and genetic adaptation can lead to the evolution of novel and aggressive traits and behaviors in nematodes.
Evolution
Apr 11, 2024
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Flowers may be more ancient than dinosaurs, but scientists can't agree on when they evolved
Flowers may look delicate—but flowering plants, what scientists call angiosperms, are one of the most successful evolutionary organisms on the planet. Including more than 350,000 known species, they dominate the ecological ...
Evolution
Apr 10, 2024
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3D mouth of an ancient jawless fish suggests they were filter-feeders, not scavengers or hunters
Early jawless fish were likely to have used bony projections surrounding their mouths to modify their mouth shape while they collected food.
Evolution
Apr 10, 2024
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96
Mysterious bones may have belonged to gigantic ichthyosaurs
Several similar large, fossilized bone fragments have been discovered in various regions across Western and Central Europe since the 19th century. The animal group to which they belonged is still the subject of much debate ...
Evolution
Apr 9, 2024
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196
Mediterranean marine worm has developed eyes 'as big as millstones'
Scientists are amazed at the discovery of a bristle worm with such sharp-seeing eyes that they can measure up to those of mammals and octopuses. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Lund University suspect that ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 8, 2024
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Researchers bring 60-year-old dormant algae cells to life
New research at Åbo Akademi University, Finland, has managed to circumvent previous challenges in finding out how microalgae adapt to global warming by studying up to 60-year-old microalgae cells from the Archipelago Sea. ...
Evolution
Apr 8, 2024
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A hydrocarbon molecule as supplier and energy storage solution for solar energy
Mycoheterotrophic plants as a key to the 'Wood Wide Web'
