Featured series 
Tag: Evolution
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Nation & World
Scientists have something to chew on
In a groundbreaking study, two Harvard scientists have for the first time extracted human DNA from ancient artifacts. The work potentially opens up a new universe of sources for ancient genetic material, which is used to map human migrations in prehistoric times.
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Nation & World
First orchid fossil puts showy blooms at some 80 million years old
Biologists at Harvard University have identified the ancient fossilized remains of a pollen-bearing bee as the first hint of orchids in the fossil record, a find they say suggests orchids are old enough to have coexisted with dinosaurs.
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Nation & World
Evolution caught playing with genetic on-off switch
A tiny opossum’s genome has shed light on how evolution creates new creatures from old, showing that change primarily comes by finding new ways of turning existing genes on and off.
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Nation & World
When fish first started biting
Before fish began to invade land, about 365 million years ago, they had some big problems to solve. They needed to come up with new ways to move, breathe, and eat.
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Nation & World
Humans hot, sweaty, natural-born runners
Hairless, clawless, and largely weaponless, ancient humans used the unlikely combination of sweatiness and relentlessness to gain the upper hand over their faster, stronger, generally more dangerous animal prey, Harvard Anthropology Professor Daniel Lieberman said Thursday (April 12).
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Nation & World
Can science, religion coexist in peace?
Almost 14 billion years after the big bang, and 3.5 billion years since the first bacteria appeared on Earth, humans occupy just one branch of the tree of life. We share an evolutionary limb with other eukaryotes, creatures whose membrane-bound cells carry genetic material. Our biological neighbors developed over time just as we did, by…
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Nation & World
Wilson urges alliance to save species
Edward O. Wilson sees a future in which science and religion join forces to save the natural world. Without such an alliance, said the legendary Harvard biologist and author, an alternative future is in store for the human race: one of accelerating environmental cataclysm fueled by overpopulation, deforestation, declining fisheries, and climate change.
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Nation & World
The philosophy of evolution
For many college students, deciding what subject to major in can be a struggle. But for Peter Godfrey-Smith the decision seemed obvious almost from his first days as an undergraduate at Sydney University in Australia. “I knew when I was a first-year student that I was going to do philosophy,” he said. “There was such…
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Nation & World
Big brains better for birds
As you might guess, big-brained birds survive better in the wild than those less cerebral for their size. Scientists guessed that too, but they had to prove it to themselves.
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Nation & World
World’s largest flower evolved from family of much tinier blooms
The plant with the world’s largest flower – typically a full meter across, with a bud the size of a basketball – evolved from a family of plants whose blossoms are nearly all tiny, botanists write this week in the journal Science. Their genetic analysis of rafflesia reveals that it is closely related to a…
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Nation & World
Controlling long-term memory
Harvard University biologists have identified a molecular pathway active in neurons that interacts with RNA to regulate the formation of long-term memory in fruit flies. The same pathway is also found at mammalian synapses, and could eventually present a target for new therapeutics to treat human memory loss.