Scientists reveal clues about the evolutionary origin of jaws by studying the embryonic development of zebrafish -- an approach known as 'evo-devo.' Using imaging and cell tracing techniques in ...

Researchers at EPFL have created the first 4D lipid atlas of vertebrate development, revealing how fats shape our bodies from ...

A study by a group of researchers at the University of Kentucky in collaboration with scientists in four other countries has been published in Nature. Their study is titled "The hagfish genome and the ...

Whole-genome duplications are rare evolutionary events in which all the chromosomes and genes of a species are doubled. This supplies new genetic material to the gene pool and can provide an ...

New CU Boulder-led research finds that the traits that make vertebrates distinct from invertebrates were made possible by the emergence of a new set of genes 500 million years ago, documenting an ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract The first vertebrate fossils to be seen by Europeans in the Western Hemisphere were mastodon bones collected by the Indians in Tlascala, and ...

One of the great transformations in evolution of vertebrates has been the return to the aquatic environment after the conquest of terrestrial ecosystems. With structural and physiological ...

Researchers report that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or 'retrotransposon' is ...

Charles Darwin proposed that evolution is driven by gradual variations in organisms that have a survival advantage in a changing environment. But University of Maryland evolutionary biologist Karen ...

Scientists at Queensland Museum have uncovered a 400-million-year-old vertebrate fossil, which could be the smallest of its kind ever found in Queensland. Palaeospondylus gunni, a mysterious eel-like ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions, and think critically.