Tag: Evolutionary Biology
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Nation & World
What makes us human? It’s all in the hips
Study shows how pelvis takes shape and what genes orchestrate the process.
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Nation & World
Before cancer kills, it cheats
Evolutionary biologist Athena Aktipis of Arizona State University delivered a lecture titled “Why Cancer is Everywhere” at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
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Nation & World
Retracing Romer’s footsteps
A Harvard team finds a rare fossil in Nova Scotia while retracing the footsteps of Alfred Romer, the paleontologist who identified a gap in the record from the period when animals first crawled out of the ocean and began to walk on four legs.
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Nation & World
Key connection
Scientists have long suggested that the best way to settle the debate about how phenotypic plasticity may be connected to evolution would be to identify a mechanism that controls both. Harvard researchers say they have discovered just such a mechanism in insulin signaling in fruit flies.
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Nation & World
Touch, drag, learn
Research by computer scientists, biologists, and cognitive psychologists at Harvard, Northwestern, Wellesley, and Tufts suggests that collaborative touch-screen games have value beyond play.
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Nation & World
Making the World Smaller – Daniel Lieberman – Harvard Thinks Big
Daniel Lieberman Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology
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Nation & World
Award-winning teaching
Professor of Astronomy David Charbonneau and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology Hopi Hoekstra have been named as the recipients of the inaugural Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching.
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Nation & World
What’s behind the predictably loopy gut
Between conception and birth, the human gut grows more than two meters long, looping and coiling within the tiny abdomen. Within a given species, the developing vertebrate gut always loops into the same formation — however, until now, it has not been clear why.
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Nation & World
Microbes to the rescue
Study says microbes may consume far more gaseous waste from gulf oil spill than previously believed.
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Nation & World
The lizard king
Researcher Jonathan Losos devotedly studies the anole lizard, and has compiled decades of research into a new book.
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Nation & World
Barefoot running easier on feet than running shoes
New Harvard research casts doubt on the old adage, “All you need to run is a pair of shoes.”
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Nation & World
Orphan army ants join nearby colonies
Normal 0 0 1 415 2369 19 4 2909 11.1282 0 0 0 Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are…
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Nation & World
How does a worm build a throat?
Mention worms to most people, and they probably think of fishing, gardening, or trips to the vet. Mention them to Susan E. Mango, and she begins telling you how “absolutely…
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Nation & World
Genetic sex determination let ancient species adapt to ocean life
A new analysis of extinct sea creatures suggests that the transition from egg-laying to live-born young opened up evolutionary pathways that allowed these ancient species to adapt to and thrive…
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Nation & World
Mouse set to be ‘evolution icon’
A tiny pale deer mouse living on a sand dune in Nebraska looks set to become an icon of biology. Within just a few thousand years, generations of the mice have evolved a sandy-coloured coat camouflaging themselves from predators…
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Nation & World
Freshwater fish at top of food chain evolve more slowly
Since evolving to eat other fish, freshwater fish at the top of the food chain have remained relatively unchanged compared with their insect- and snail-eating cousins, according to new research.…
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Nation & World
Some vocal-mimicking animals, particularly parrots, can move to a musical beat
Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren’t the only ones who can groove to a beat — some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed…
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Nation & World
The evolution of Darwin
In a fitting celebration of a man whose ideas revolutionized science, Harvard marked Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday in style.
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Nation & World
Exploring abundance under the sea floor
Called the North Pond Basin, the site — researchers at Harvard and beyond believe — can provide a window onto a vast world of subterranean microscopic life that extends kilometers below the Earth’s surface and which, according to rough estimates, could rival life above the surface in both diversity and sheer mass.
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Nation & World
Seeing what they hear, to better understand ourselves
It was a long drive from St. Louis to Florida, but Darlene Ketten had finally made it. Standing in the warm surf of St. George Island, she watched with delight as tiny, colorful bean clams popped out of the sand and then quickly reburied themselves as the waves foamed around her calves.
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Nation & World
Harvard faculty members net MacArthur fellowships
Three biologists — one current and two future faculty members at Harvard — have won MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants, $500,000 no-strings-attached awards intended to encourage creativity, originality, and innovation in a broad array of fields.
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Nation & World
Clark, Hewitt named AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows
Harvard affiliates Sharri Clark and David Hewitt have been named among the newest group of Science & Technology Policy Fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The fellows spend a year working in federal agencies or congressional offices learning about science policy while providing valuable science and technology expertise to the…
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Nation & World
Mars’ water appears to have been too salty to support life
A new analysis of the Martian rock that gave hints of water on the Red Planet — and, therefore, optimism about the prospect of life — now suggests the water…
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Nation & World
Animal interaction behind ‘Cambrian Explosion’?
Harvard Professor of Biology and of Geology Charles Marshall presented his Tuesday (April 29), suggesting that it was an increase in interactions between species, such as predation, that drove an escalating evolutionary process that led to the development of teeth and claws and the wide variety of characteristics that we see among Earth’s animals today.
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Nation & World
Molecular analysis of T. rex protein shows shared avian ancestry
Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs’ closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein — along with that of 21 modern species — confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators.
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Nation & World
Eating meat led to smaller stomachs, bigger brains
Behind glass cases, Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology displays ancient tools, weapons, clothing, and art — enough to jar you back into the past. But the venerable museum offered a jarring moment of another sort in its Geological Lecture Hall last month (March 20). Paleoanthropologist Leslie Aiello delivered a late-afternoon talk on diet, energy, and…
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Nation & World
Punishment doesn’t earn rewards
Individuals who engage in costly punishment do not benefit from their behavior, according to a new study published this week in the journal Nature by researchers at Harvard University and the Stockholm School of Economics.