Evolution News

May 22, 2025

Top Headlines

Ancient DNA Used to Map Evolution of Fever-Causing Bacteria

May 22, 2025 — Researchers have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained and lost genes in the ...

'Selfish' Genes Called Introners Proven to Be a Major Source of Genetic Complexity

May 22, 2025 — A new study proves that a type of genetic element called 'introners' are the mechanism by which many introns spread within and between species, also providing evidence of eight instances in which ...

On the Origin (and Fate) of Plants That Never Bloom

May 20, 2025 — Plants that reproduce exclusively by self-pollination arise from populations with extremely low diversity to begin with. The research not only adds a facet to possible evolutionary strategies, but also lends weight to Darwin's suspicion that this ...

Research Team Traces Evolutionary History of Bacterial Circadian Clock on Ancient Earth

May 20, 2025 — To better understand the circadian clock in modern-day cyanobacteria, a research team has studied ancient timekeeping systems. They examined the oscillation of the clock proteins KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC ...

Latest Headlines

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Asians Made Humanity's Longest Prehistoric Migration and Shaped the Genetic Landscape in the Americas

May 15, 2025 — An international genomics study has revealed that early Asians undertook humanity's longest known prehistoric migration. These early humans, who ...

Australia's Oldest Prehistoric Tree Frog Hops 22 Million Years Back in Time

May 14, 2025 — Scientists have now discovered the oldest ancestor for all the Australian tree frogs, with distant links to the tree frogs of South ...

Fossil Tracks Show Reptiles Appeared on Earth Up to 40 Million Years Earlier

May 14, 2025 — The origin of reptiles on Earth has been shown to be up to 40 million years earlier than previously thought -- thanks to evidence discovered at an ...

Dexterity and Climbing Ability: How Ancient Human Relatives Used Their Hands

May 14, 2025 — Scientists have found new evidence for how our fossil human relatives in South Africa may have used their hands. Researchers investigated variation ...

UV Light and CT Scans Helped Scientists Unlock Hidden Details in a Beautifully-Preserved Fossil Archaeopteryx

May 14, 2025 — Archaeopteryx is the fossil that clearly demonstrated Darwin's views. It's the oldest known fossil bird, and it helps show that all birds -- ...

Researchers Map 7,000-Year-Old Genetic Mutation That Protects Against HIV

May 9, 2025 — Modern HIV medicine is based on a common genetic mutation. Now, researchers have traced where and when the mutation arose -- and how it protected our ancestors from ancient ...

Comb Jellies Reveal Ancient Origins of Animal Genome Regulation

May 7, 2025 — Life depends on genes being switched on and off at exactly the right time. Even the simplest living organisms do this, but usually over short distances across the DNA sequence, with the on/off switch ...

Triassic Fossil Reveals Nature's Best Jaw for Hunting Fast Fish

May 7, 2025 — Newly discovered species of extinct fish shows striking similarities to unrelated modern-day predators, suggesting certain traits have emerged multiple times and remained consistent over hundreds of ...

A Fully Automated Tool for Species Tree Inference

May 5, 2025 — Engineers are making it easier for researchers from a broad range of backgrounds to understand how different species are evolutionarily related, and support the transformative biological and medical ...

Genomic Survey Uncovers Evolutionary Origins of Secretoglobins

May 5, 2025 — At a conference in Washington D.C. in 2000, the secretoglobin super family of proteins was named to classify proteins with structural similarities to its founding member uteroglobin. Now, 25 years ...

Geobiology: Iron, Sulfur, Heat -- And First Life

Apr. 30, 2025 — The very first cells obtained their energy from geochemical reactions. Researchers have now managed to recreate this ancient metabolic process in their ...

The Oldest Ant Ever Discovered Found Fossilized in Brazil

Apr. 24, 2025 — A 113-million-year-old hell ant that once lived in northeastern Brazil is now the oldest ant specimen known to science, finds a new report. The hell ant, which was preserved in limestone, is a member ...

What Rattlesnake Venom Can Teach Us About Evolution: New USF Study

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new study found that some rattlesnakes are producing simpler venoms containing fewer and more focused toxin families than complex venoms -- a surprising discovery that challenges long-held ideas ...

How Activity in Earth's Mantle Led the Ancient Ancestors of Elephants, Giraffes, and Humans Into Asia and Africa

Apr. 21, 2025 — What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and ...

Unlocking the Genetic Basis of Adaptive Evolution: Study Reveals Complex Chromosomal Rearrangements in a Stick Insect

Apr. 18, 2025 — Scientists report adaptive divergence in cryptic color pattern is underlain by two distinct, complex chromosomal rearrangements, where millions of bases of DNA were flipped backwards and moved from ...

Environmental Variability Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation Among Humans: A Simulation-Based Analysis

Apr. 18, 2025 — Researchers have demonstrated that intensified environmental variability (EV) can promote the evolution of cooperation through simulation based on evolutionary game theory. This result offers a new ...

The Eukaryotic Cell Emerged as an Evolutionary Algorithmic Phase Transition

Apr. 21, 2025 — An international collaboration has published groundbreaking research, shedding light on the most significant increase in complexity in the history of life's evolution on Earth: the origin of the ...

Secret to Crocodylian Longevity

Apr. 16, 2025 — Researchers examined teeth and skulls of 99 extinct crocodylomorph species and 20 living crocodylian species to reconstruct their dietary ecology and identify characteristics that helped some groups ...

Mammoth Genetic Diversity Throughout the Last Million Years

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these ...

Ancient Fossil Sheds Big Light on Evolution Mystery: Solving a 100-Year Arthropod Mystery

Apr. 8, 2025 — Researchers formally describe Helmetia expansa, offering new insights into its anatomy, behavior and evolutionary ...

Machine Learning Helps Construct an Evolutionary Timeline of Bacteria

Apr. 3, 2025 — Scientists have helped to construct a detailed timeline for bacterial evolution, suggesting some bacteria used oxygen long before evolving the ability to produce it through ...

First Ancient Genomes from the Green Sahara Deciphered

Apr. 2, 2025 — An international team has sequenced the first ancient genomes from the so-called Green Sahara, a period when the largest desert in the world temporarily turned into a humid savanna-like environment. ...

'She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not': Physical Forces Encouraged Evolution of Multicellular Life, Scientists Propose

Mar. 31, 2025 — A study presents a striking example of cooperative organization among cells as a potential force in the evolution of multicellular life. The study is based on the fluid dynamics of cooperative ...

Scientists Uncover Key Mechanism in Evolution: Whole-Genome Duplication Drives Long-Term Adaptation

Mar. 26, 2025 — Scientists uncovered how whole-genome duplication emerges and remains stable over thousands of generations of evolution in the ...

New Species Revealed After 25 Years of Study on 'Inside Out' Fossil -- And Named After Discoverer's Mum

Mar. 26, 2025 — A new species of fossil is 444 million years-old with soft insides perfectly preserved. Research 'ultramarathon' saw palaeontologist puzzled by bizarre fossil for 25 ...

Earliest Days of Earth's Formation

Mar. 26, 2025 — New research sheds light on the earliest days of the earth's formation and potentially calls into question some earlier assumptions in planetary science about the early years of rocky planets. ...

How Did the Large Brain Evolve?

Mar. 26, 2025 — Two specific genes that evolve exclusively in humans jointly influence the development of the cerebrum. Researchers have provided evidence that these genes contribute together to the evolutionary ...

The Evolution of Low-Temperature Adapted Enzymes

Mar. 25, 2025 — Enzymes originally evolved in high-temperature environments and later adapted to lower temperatures as Earth cooled. Scientists discovered that a key shift in enzyme function occurred over ...

Biologists Discover Ancient Neurohormone That Controls Appetite

Mar. 24, 2025 — Biologists have discovered that bombesin, a neurohormone controlling appetite in humans, also regulates feeding in starfish, revealing its ancient evolutionary origin dating back over 500 million ...

From Dinosaurs to Birds: The Origins of Feather Formation

Mar. 20, 2025 — Feathers, essential for thermoregulation, flight, and communication in birds, originate from simple appendages known as proto-feathers, which were present in certain dinosaurs.By studying embryonic ...