Evolution | featured news

In the hope of reconstructing a pivotal step in evolution — the colonization of land by fish that learned to walk and breathe air — researchers have decoded the genome of the coelacanth, a prehistoric-looking fish whose form closely resembles those seen in the fossils of 400 million years ago.

A series of studies released today show that a long-extinct South African creature had an intriguing mix of human and apelike traits. But scientists say they still haven’t figured out where it fits on our evolutionary family tree. The human branch of the evolutionary tree, called Homo, is thought to have arisen from a group of ancient species called australopithecines. The newly studied species is a member of this group, and so its similarities to humans are enticing for tackling the riddle of how Homo appeared.

Does a new study offer a bird's-eye view into evolution? Fewer cliff swallows are being killed by moving vehicles because of evolution, suggests a study published online today in the journal Current Biology. "These birds have been exposed to vehicles and roads for 30-plus years," says Charles Brown, the study's lead author. "During that time, they have evolved to avoid being killed by traffic. Evolution can happen very rapidly, and some animals can adapt to urban environments very rapidly."

"This second hypothesis says that when we settled down, and in conjunction with the development of agriculture, we produced waste dumps around our settlements; and suddenly there was this new food resource, a new niche, for wolves to make use of, and the wolf that was best able to make use of it became the ancestor of the dog," explained Erik Axelsson from Uppsala University.

On an Election Day filled with upsets, the father of evolutionary theory proved incapable of riding the wave down in Georgia. Fictional write-in candidate Charles Darwin was promoted around Georgia's 10th congressional district to provide a symbolic challenge to Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), the outspoken congressman who created a stir earlier this year when video emerged of him calling evolution and the big bang theory "lies from the pit of hell."

British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years....

An analysis of 2 million-year-old bones found in South Africa offers the most powerful case so far in identifying the transitional figure that came before modern humans - findings some are calling a potential game-changer in understanding evolution....

An eel recently discovered in an underwater cave appears to have evolved out of step with the rest of us, retaining primitive characteristics associated with animals from the dinosaur era.

A small but growing number of field biologists study urban evolution — the biological changes that cities bring to the wildlife that inhabits them.

You've read the headline, and it probably made you giggle. Go ahead. Get it out of your system. Then take a deep breath and consider how evolution affected a few specific body parts, and why.