Articles with the keyword: 
Evolution: Biology's next top model?
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.nature.com)
From Antarctic icefish to Galapagos finches, there are some interesting characters at the fringes of developmental biology. Brendan Maher explores a world of alternative model organisms. 
New Theory on Largest Known Mass Extinction in Earth's History
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
The largest mass extinction in the history of the Earth could have been triggered by giant salt lakes whose emissions of halogenated gases changed the atmospheric composition so dramatically that vegetation was irretrievably damaged.
How Did Insects Get Their Wings?
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (blogs.sciencemag.org)
Exactly how insects evolved flight is a heated issue, in part because the fossil evidence for winged insects remains full of gaps. But living insects that are similar to ancestral species could also shed light on the origins of insect flight. In a study reported online this week in Biology Letters, researchers report that bristletails, primitive, wingless insects that live in the tropical forests of Peru, can use long antennae-like filaments extending from their rear ends to help them glide to tree trunks as they jump or fall from forest canopies
Billions of years ago, microbes were key in developing modern nitrogen cycle
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.eurekalert.org)
As the world marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, there is much focus on evolution in animals and plants. But new research shows that for the countless billions of tiniest creatures microbes large-scale evolution was completed 2.5 billion years ago.
"For microbes, it appears that almost all of their major evolution took place before we have any record of them, way back in the dark mists of prehistory," said Roger Buick, a University of Washington paleontologist and astrobiologist.
All living organisms need nitrogen, a basic component of amino acids and proteins
An Earlier Debut for a Famous Algae
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
Life takes cooperation. That's true in politics, on the playground--and for evolution, because switching from a me to we mindset helped cells evolve to more complex organisms. New research shows that cells in green algae called Volvox may have learned to cooperate much earlier than thought, shifting the evolutionary time frame for this model organism back hundreds of millions of years--a somewhat controversial finding.
Volvox is a perennial favorite among biologists, who study the algae to learn how multicellular organisms evolved
Synthetic biology yields clues to evolution and the origin of life
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.eurekalert.org)
Researchers in the field of synthetic biology are still a long way from being able to assemble living cells from scratch in the laboratory. But according to biochemist David Deamer of the University of California, Santa Cruz, their efforts are yielding clues to the mystery of how life began on Earth.
Deamer has been investigating the origin of life for more than twenty years, focusing on the molecular self-assembly processes that led to the first "protocells" nearly four billion years ago
Rapidly evolving gene contributes to origin of species
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.eurekalert.org)
A gene that helped one species split into two species shows evidence of adapting much faster than other genes in the genome, raising questions about what is driving its rapid evolution.
The paper in today's issue of Science shows that the gene has connections to another previously identified "speciation gene." Both genes code for key proteins that control molecular traffic into and out of a cell's nucleus
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
An international research team of scientists from UC Riverside, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions has found the oldest evidence for animals in the fossil record.
Evolution hits the debate table again for Texas educators
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.nytimes.com)
Texas is considering making changes to the way evolution is taught in schools, adding lines in textbooks that would play up what skeptics see as weaknesses in Darwin's theories.
What I found interesting about this article is that it pointed out why Texas is so important in American education: Because it is the biggest buyer of textbooks in the country, many publishers attune themselves to Texas's needs so that they do not have to print multiple versions.
Epigenetics: Study identifies the genes and epigenetic factors that make hybrids infertile
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.nature.com)
Geneticists out of the Czech Republic's Academy of Sciences have identified the gene that makes hybrids infertile. They're calling it Prdm9. This is the first time that such a gene has been identified in mammals. (Fruit flies are known to have comparable genes.)
One of the definitions of a species is a group of organisms that can reproduce and create fertile young. The offspring of say, a horse and a donkey or a lion and a tiger tend to be sterile. (Polar bears and grizzly bears produce non-sterile hybrids, so many teachers add the caveat "in the wild
Did lack of comet impacts help life evolve?
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.newscientist.com)
IT SEEMS we got off lightly in the cosmic lottery. Deadly comet impacts may be much rarer in our solar system than in others nearby.
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
A common European weed has turned its compact flower into an expansive, yellow-petalled blossom by borrowing a couple of genes from a close Italian relative. Researchers say the exchange is a rare documented example of beneficial genetic flow between species. It also challenges the notion that higher organisms must rely on their own genes to evolve.
The story starts three hundred years ago, when botanists introduced a yellow Sicilian flower called Senecio squalidus to Oxford, U.K. At the time, there was only one variety of a British weed known as the common groundsel (S
Vampire Moth Discovered -- Evolution at Work
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 10 months (news.nationalgeographic.com)
A previously unknown population of vampire moths has been found in Siberia. And in a twist worthy of a Halloween horror movie, entomologists say the bloodsuckers may have evolved from a purely fruit-eating species.
Only slight variations in wing patterns distinguish the Russian population from a widely distributed moth species, Calyptra thalictri, found in central and southern Europe, known to feed only on fruit.
When the Russian moths were experimentally offered human hands this summer, the insects drilled their hook-and-barb-lined tongues under the skin and sucked blood.
Nature inverviews Senator Obama on science issues
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.nature.com)
The title says it all. Obama, in his own words, responds to Nature magazine on scientific issues. The original idea for the article had been to get both candidates' views, but McCain's campaign declined Nature's invitation. Summaries of Senator McCain's views are given instead.
The only scientific issue for which McCain shows more enthusiasm than Obama is the space program. On others, he is either surpassed or matched by Obama
Education: Royal Society's Director of Education steps down over creationist remarks
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.nature.com)
The Royal Society's Director of Education seems to have been forced to step down. Michael Reiss, who is both a professor at England's Institute of Education and an Anglican priest, stepped down the other day after a speech in which he advocated "engage in dialogue with the creationist views some children express in science classes" [Nature's words] re-raised old questions about whether priests should be appointed to such positions at all.
Frankly, I think it is perfectly possible for a priest to serve in such a capacity
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