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Science Evolves. Will Science Education?
...that a fundamental theory like evolution is on shaky ground — it is not. But rather that scientists are still debating some of the specific mechanisms by which evolution produces...
How Life Turns Asymmetric
...Lefty, a gene that suppresses Nodal activity on the embryo’s right. The Nodal-Lefty team appears to be the most important genetic pathway that guides asymmetry, said Cliff Tabin, an evolutionary...
How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains
...evolutionary biologist Peter Wheeler proposed the “expensive tissue hypothesis” as a possible answer. The underlying logic is straightforward: Human brain evolution likely required a metabolic trade-off. In order for the...
By Losing Genes, Life Often Evolved More Complexity
...Wisconsin Energy Institute and their co-authors wrote in their paper, “Our results argue that reductive evolution is a major mode of evolutionary diversification.” Of course, the risk of evolving by...
Mongrel Microbe Tests Story of Complex Life
...organisms two billion years ago led to cells with complex internal features. “A single event in four billion years of evolution sculpted the whole future evolution of eukaryotes — that’s...
Meet the New Math, Unlike the Old Math
...with me.” Still, NGSS has had its controversies. The document includes standards related to climate change and evolution, which has motivated opposition in conservative states. And, politics aside, the standards...
How Viruses May Have Led to Complex Life
...idea that viruses played a role in one of the most significant complexity jumps in evolution: The transition from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. Prokaryotic organisms, which include bacteria and archaea, were...
Where Do New Genes Come From?
In their search for sources of genetic novelty, researchers find that some “orphan genes” with no obvious ancestors evolve out of junk DNA, contrary to old assumptions. The evolution of...
How Do New Organs Evolve? A Beetle Gland Shows the Way.
...another, locked in a cycle of mutual dependence. The coevolution that the researchers observed in the beetle gland could be “a kind of paradigm for functional evolution of organs in...