Geneticists Figure Out Why Dogs Are So Friendly to Humans
Futurism » Evolution
by Lonnie Lee Hood
1y ago
Happy Accidents This week scientists came one step closer to learning what makes a good boy a good boy. Turns out dogs may have learned some of their human social skills from a previously undiscovered genetic mutation. A group of researchers from Japan's Azabu University published a study in the journal Nature Thursday and said ancient dog breeds showed less tendency to look back at humans while trying to solve puzzles than newer dog breeds are. This indicates the genetic mutation happened and proliferated as humans bred dogs for their social skills and usefulness. "As wolves, which share the ..read more
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It Turns Out People Who Don’t Believe in Evolution Are Racist Jerks
Futurism » Evolution
by Noor Al-Sibai
2y ago
People who think evolution is a bunch of hogwash are, per a new study, much more likely to be bigoted. In a new interview with PsyPost, University of Massachusetts at Amherst researcher Stylianos Syropoulos discusses the implications of a new study his team published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Syropoulos and his colleagues found that in the United States — as well as in Eastern Europe and the Middle East — that a low threshold of belief in the theory of evolution corresponded with higher prejudices both within one’s own group as well as bigotry towards people of ..read more
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Scientist Says There May Be a Species of Hobbit-Like Humanoids Hiding on an Island
Futurism » Evolution
by Noor Al-Sibai
2y ago
It’s been nearly 20 years since the bones of a Hobbit-like humanoid species were found on the Indonesian island of Flores — and according to one researcher, there may be more than ancient bones. In an essay for The Scientist magazine, retired ethnobiologist Gregory Forth describes why he believes Homo floresiensis, as they were called by the famous late anthropologist Mike Morwood when he found the Pleistocene-era bones on Flores in 2004, may still be alive and well in the forests of the island. Morwood’s discovery of H. floresiensis rocked the scientific world when he first re ..read more
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Scientists Say There May Be “Humans” All Over the Universe
Futurism » Evolution
by Noor Al-Sibai
2y ago
Imagine, if you will, that future humans manage to travel to other worlds and find… more humans. According to one University of Cambridge astrobiologist, that scenario may be more likely than you’d think. In a new interview with the BBC‘s Science Focus magazine, an evolutionary palaeobiologist  at the institution’s Department of Earth Sciences named Simon Conway Morris declared that researchers can “say with reasonable confidence” that human-like evolution has occurred in other locations around the universe. The core of Morris’ belief comes from the theory of convergent evoluti ..read more
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Humans Are Evolving a New Artery
Futurism » Evolution
by Dan Robitzski
3y ago
A team of scientists has identified a new way that humans are continuing to evolve. Before babies are born, a median artery running down the forearm supplies their hands with blood. But shortly after birth, most people’s median artery fades away after two others take its place. Now, research published last month in the Journal of Anatomy shows that the percentage of people who retain their median artery has been growing since at least the 18th century — evidence that our species is continuing to develop new biological traits. “This is micro evolution in modern humans and the median arter ..read more
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Scientists Just Watched Bacteria Evolve in Real Time
Futurism » Evolution
by Dan Robitzski
3y ago
Front Row Seats In an unusual experiment, scientists got to watch as bacteria adapted to a new host, evolving to become more infectious over hundreds of generations. While tracking changes over time, the University of Vienna scientists saw two very different evolutionary strategies emerge in bacteria that were subjected to different conditions. The research, published in the journal PNAS, is a fascinating case study that helps scientists understand how bacteria becomes dangerous. A/B Testing Half of the bacteria were subjected to conditions where they had to repeatedly infect new host cells t ..read more
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The Coronavirus Started in Animals. That Makes it More Dangerous.
Futurism » Evolution
by Dan Robitzski
3y ago
The coronavirus that emerged in China and rapidly spread around the world almost certainly jumped to humans from an animal. While that’s certainly not unheard of, scientists are on high alert — because zoonotic viruses, as they’re called, can potentially be more dangerous. The heightened risk associated with animal-borne diseases like 2019-nCoV comes from the fact that our immune systems have never had the chance to build up resistance to them, according to New Scientist. From an evolutionary perspective, a successful virus is one that develops to spread rapidly and rampantly — something that ..read more
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Sharks Are Evolving to Walk on Land
Futurism » Evolution
by Dan Robitzski
3y ago
Land Sharks Four newly-discovered species of shark are capable of trotting around on land, using four fins as stubby legs. They’re the most recently-evolved types of sharks known to science, according to CNET. And while they still live in the water, using their fins to crawl across coral reefs, they can briefly wriggle across dry land to migrate from one tide pool to another. Safe For Now This means there are now nine known species of walking sharks, according to research published Tuesday in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research. And while a shark that can march out of the ocean may see ..read more
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Our Attempts to Kill Rats Are Making Them Evolve at Super Speed
Futurism » Evolution
by Kristin Houser
3y ago
Sickly or Super? Efforts to control urban rat populations rarely — if ever — result in the complete eradication of the pests. Most of the time, the goal is to simply reduce rodent numbers enough to minimize the spread of disease or damage to property. But according to Jonathan Richardson, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Richmond, letting some rats slip through the cracks can cause a local population to swiftly evolve, leading to either of two long-term outcomes: sickly rats or “super” ones. Rodent Survivors In June, the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution publish ..read more
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NASA Says It Found Building Blocks of Life in Fallen Meteorites
Futurism » Evolution
by Dan Robitzski
3y ago
Raining Down A team of scientists says it’s found sugar molecules — crucial to the development of life on Earth — in two different fallen meteorites. The discovery suggests that meteor impacts may have delivered the sugars to Earth, per a NASA press release. One of the sugars is the RNA component ribose, a key biological building block, and the discovery that it may have come from space complicates our understanding of how life emerged. Eliminating Alternatives The scientists, who hail from NASA and a trio of Japanese universities, took extra steps to make sure they didn’t just contaminate th ..read more
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