Scientists in Brazil have identified an unusual canine brought to a veterinary clinic as being the hybrid offspring of a dog and a pampas fox. The animal, a female, was the size and build of a medium size dog but had fox-like facial features and ears and thick black-brown fur. A study of its chromosomes […]
A team of scientists has studied the genomes of 14 species from 12 families of snakes to find out what genetic changes happened for reptiles with four limbs and two lungs to change into snakes with no limbs and one lung. The found three parts of a gene called PTCH1 had missing DNA. This gene […]
Chicken scales turned to feathers (again). Two scientists at University of Geneva have used a gene stimulating technique to get chicken embryos to develop feathers on their feet and legs instead of scales. The method involved stimulating genes named Sonic Hedgehog (Shh), which have an important role in organising and developing body organs and structures […]
An international team of scientists have studied the fossil of a lobopodian, a small extinct arthropod with a segmented trunk and multiple short stubby legs. The fossil has been named Cardiodictyon catenulum and is dated as 525 million years old. Using sophisticated scanning techniques the researchers were able to identify the creature’s brain. Nicholas Strausfeld […]
A century ago biologists suggested that butterfly wing patterns were formed from variations in a basic ground plan that was somehow manipulated to produce the distinct patterns in different butterfly species. Scientists at Cornell University and The George Washington University have now carried out a study that “explains how DNA that sits between genes – […]
When the human genome was first presented to the world it had many gaps in it, especially from regions where there were lots of repetitive sequences. These tended to be around the two ends of each chromosome, called telomeres, and around a region called the centromere, where the chromosomes are held together and then separated […]
Darwin proposed that evolutionary changes occur by a long series of small incremental changes over long periods of time. Six decades later Richard Goldschmidt proposed that evolution happened by sudden large changes resulting in new organisms with new structures and functions, which he called “hopeful monsters”. A group of evolutionary biologists at University of California […]
The many breeds of domestic dogs vary enormously in body size, even though all domestic dogs belong to one species. An international team of scientists has carried out a wide-ranging study of genes that influence body size in domestic and wild dogs. A gene named IGF1 is already known to have a strong influence on […]
Elephants lose tusks “by evolution” claim media reports. During the civil war in Mozambique (1977-1992) ivory poachers killed elephants and sold the tusks to finance their war. During this time the population of elephants declined drastically. The elephant population is now making a comeback, but with a change – more female elephants are lacking tusks. […]
‘Shocking!’ They are not evolving! according to reports in Bigelow News and ScienceDaily 8 April 2021, Science Alert 9 April 2021, and The ISME Journal, 6 April 2021; doi: 10.1038/s41396-021-00965-3. Originally found deep in a South African mine, a bacterium named Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator was found to survive on a diet of chemicals produced from radioactivity […]