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Top Headlines

Geoscientists Use Zircon to Trace Origin of Earth's Continents

Dec. 1, 2020 — Geoscientists have long known that some parts of the continents formed in the Earth's deep past, but the speed in which land rose above global seas -- and the exact shapes that land masses formed -- ...

Warbler Coloration Shaped by Evolution Via Distinct Paths

Nov. 30, 2020 — Two genes that are important for the diverse colors and patterns of warbler plumage have evolved through two very different processes, according to a new study. These evolutionary processes could ...

New Insights Into How the CRISPR Immune System Evolved

Nov. 25, 2020 — Although CRISPR-Cas has found many uses in biotechnology and medicine, it originates in nature, where it functions as a microbial immune system. Scientists shed new light on how CRISPR-Cas emerged ...

True Origin of Oldest Evidence of Animals

Nov. 23, 2020 — Scientists have resolved a longstanding controversy surrounding the origins of complex life on Earth. The studies found molecular fossils extracted from 635-million-year-old rocks aren't the earliest ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:37pm EST

Did Early Life Need Long, Complex Molecules to Make Cell-Like Compartments?

Nov. 23, 2020 — Protocell compartments used as models for an important step in the early evolution of life on Earth can be made from short ...

Teaching and Complex Tools 'Evolved Together'

Nov. 17, 2020 — The human ability to teach and our use of complex tools may have evolved together, according to new ...

A Hox Paradigm for Studying Protein Evolution

Nov. 17, 2020 — In a new study, researchers have identified a handful of variations in an amino acid sequence critical for retaining the ancestral function of a gene over the course of 600 million years of ...

Cichlid Fishes from African Lake Tanganyika Shed Light on How Organismal Diversity Arises

Nov. 18, 2020 — Lake Tanganyika in Africa is a true hotspot of organismal diversity. Approximately 240 species of cichlid fishes have evolved in this lake in less ...

Lurking in Genomic Shadows: How Giant Viruses Fuel the Evolution of Algae

Nov. 18, 2020 — Biologists have recently discovered that endogenous viral elements that originate from giant viruses are much more common in chlorophyte green algae than previously ...

Building Blocks of Life Can Form Long Before Stars

Nov. 16, 2020 — An international team of scientists have shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in ...

Paleontologists Uncover Three New Species of Extinct Walruses in Orange County, California

Nov. 16, 2020 — Millions of years ago, in the warm Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California, walrus species without tusks lived abundantly. But in a new ...

Genetic Code Evolution and Darwin's Evolution Theory Should Consider DNA an 'Energy Code'

Nov. 16, 2020 — Darwin's theory of evolution should be expanded to include consideration of a DNA stability 'energy code' -- so-called 'molecular Darwinism' -- to ...

Cysteine Synthesis Was a Key Step in the Origin of Life

Nov. 12, 2020 — All proteins are built from the same 20 amino acids. One of these, cysteine, was assumed not to have been present at the origin of life. In a new study, scientists have recreated how cysteine was ...

How Organ Functions Were Shaped Over the Course of Evolution

Nov. 11, 2020 — A large-scale study conducted by molecular biologists has yielded groundbreaking new insights into the evolution and regulation of gene expression in mammalian organs. The scientists investigated RNA ...