Humans are still evolving: study. Have we stopped evolving?
Whether the human race is still adapting to our surroundings is heavily debated – and now fresh genetic analyses by Harvard University’s Jonathan Beauchamp suggest natural selection still has a part to play. Beauchamp, publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compared genomes and traits of 20,000 older people with the number of children they’d produced, and found natural selection favours less schooling and a higher age of first menstruation.
In 1859, Charles Darwin defined natural selection as “one general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die”. The “strong” genes that help a species survive become more common over successive generations. Dear Science: Why aren’t apes evolving into humans? Businessinsider. Ancient shoulders show signs of humanity’s ape-like past. In some ways, chimpanzees seem less primitive than humans.
(AP Photo/Martin Meissner) A new study puts the burden of humanity's evolution on our shoulders. Like, literally on our shoulders. By examining the shoulder blades of two early human Australopithecus species, researchers believe they've found further evidence that humans and apes shared an ape-like ancestor. [Scientists find the oldest-ever hand bone to resemble a modern human’s] Richard Dawkins vs Peter Boghossian. The Smell of Evolution.
Evolution drives relentlessly forward, leaving behind a messy wake.
One of the best places to survey its sloppy creativity is inside your nose. When you smell a lily or a cigar or a jug of spoiled milk, you are grabbing their molecules out of an ocean of air. You have exposed nerve endings dangling deep inside your nostrils, each of which is studded with proteins called olfactory receptors. Each neuron is covered in one type of receptor, the shape of which allows it to grab tightly onto certain odor molecules and weakly to others, while letting many others drift by. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz: What veterinarians know that doctors don't. Selman v. Cobb County School District. Background[edit] The statement "evolution is a theory and not a fact" has been used as a tactic by creationists and intelligent design advocates, causing confusion over the difference between how theory is defined and used in the field of science and how the term is used colloquially to signify "conjecture", "speculation" or "opinion".[3] Both the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in state schools in the USA have been challenged in court and found to be a violation of the Establishment Clause (notably Edwards v.
Aguillard, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District). Those cases followed an earlier constitutional court ruling against religiously based bans against the teaching of evolution (Epperson v. Arkansas). Beginning in 1976 the Cobb County School District had policies in place requiring that their instructional program consider and accommodate for religious objections held by many of its residents to the science of human evolution. Original decision[edit] Pat Robertson Attacks Ken Ham and Creationism after Bill Nye Science Guy Debate. What Is the Evidence for Evolution Found in the Fossil Record? Richard Dawkins Speech (2009) Ed Yong: Suicidal crickets, zombie roaches and other parasite tales. Why penguins stopped flying. Birds like murres helped researchers understand why penguins no longer fly (Live Science) Penguins are excellent swimmers.
But even with wings, the aquatic flightless birds do not take to the skies despite having wing-like flippers. In fact, a new study says that penguins became so good at swimming that they eventually evolved to specialize at that skill at the cost of airborne flight. "Like many people, I've always been interested in penguins, and seeing them do these phenomenal marches across the ice, I've often thought: 'Why don't they just fly? ' Professor John Speakman, from the University of Aberdeen and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the BBC. " The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that at least five species of penguin have adapted into flightless birds. Why Evolution is True and Why Many People Still Don't Believe It (Jerry Coyne, 2012)
Daniel Dennett Doing What He Does. David Sloan Wilson on Richard Dawkins. John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!! Colin Camerer: Neuroscience, game theory, monkeys. Missing Link For Wonky-Eyed Fish Discovered. Carnivorous Plants Employ Bodyguard Ants. Carnivorous plants can have valuable allies in ants, benefiting from their poop and janitor, bodyguard and cutthroat services, researchers say.
Sheena Iyengar: The art of choosing. Hans Rosling: No more boring data: TEDTalks. DNA, Ancestry and Human Migration. Quick Links to this Page What is genetic anthropology?
Genetic anthropology is an emerging discipline that combines DNA and physical evidence to reveal the history of ancient human migration. It seeks to answer the questions, "Where did we come from, and how did we get here? " DNA studies indicate that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who lived in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. Mysterious Chinese Fossils May Be New Human Species. Mysterious fossils of what may be a previously unknown type of human have been uncovered in caves in China, ones that possess a highly unusual mix of bygone and modern human features, scientists reveal.
Surprisingly, the fossils are only between 11,500 and 14,500 years old. That means they would have shared the landscape with modern humans when China's earliest farmers were first appearing. Massive Extinction Fueled Rise of Crocodiles. A massive extinction between the Triassic and Jurassic eras paved the way for the rise of the crocodiles, new research suggests.
The researchers, who detail their work today (March 26) in the journal Biology Letters, found that although nearly all the crocodilelike archosaurs, known as pseudosuchia, died off about 201 million years ago, the one lineage that survived soon diversified to occupy land and sea. The lineage included the ancestors of all modern crocodiles and alligators. "Even though almost all the lineages except for one was extinct, the remaining survivors still did well in terms of morphology and body plans and the whole morphological diversity," said study co-author Olja Toljagic, an evolutionary biology researcher who was at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich at the time of the study.
Dinosaur counterparts But around 201 million years ago, volcanic activity or a meteor killed off half the known species on Earth. "Zombie" Fly Parasite Killing Honeybees. Fly_parasite_honeybee A parasitic fly landing on a honeybee.
Courtesy of Christopher Quock A heap of dead bees was supposed to become food for a newly captured praying mantis. Instead, the pile ended up revealing a previously unrecognized suspect in colony collapse disorder a mysterious condition that for several years has been causing declines in U.S. honeybee populations, which are needed to pollinate many important crops.
This new potential culprit is a bizarre and potentially devastating parasitic fly that has been taking over the bodies of honeybees (Apis mellifera) in Northern California. John Hafernik, a biology professor at San Francisco State University, had collected some belly-up bees from the ground underneath lights around the University’s biology building. The History Channel Evolve 11 of 11 Shape [p2/5] The History Channel Evolve 09 of 11 Speed [p1/5] The History Channel Evolve 06 of 11 Communication [p1/5] The History Channel Evolve 05 of 11 Flight [p1/5] The History Channel Evolve 04 of 11 Skin [p3/5] The History Channel Evolve 04 of 11 Skin [p4/5] The History Channel Evolve 04 of 11 Skin [p5/5]