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evolution

Latest Articles

Paleontologist Pincelli Hull
Q&A

A Rapid End Strikes the Dinosaur Extinction Debate

By Joshua Sokol
March 25, 2020
Comment
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The paleontologist Pincelli Hull has nailed down the timing and speed of the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs — details that carry ominous warnings for today.

A mother armadillo, lying on her side, nurses four baby armadillos.
developmental biology

Nature Versus Nurture? Add ‘Noise’ to the Debate.

By Jordana Cepelewicz
March 23, 2020
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We give our genes and our environment all the credit for making us who we are. But random noise during development might be just as important.

Illustration of a connection between a bat and a human, with a backdrop of coronaviruses.
Quantized Columns

The Animal Origins of Coronavirus and Flu

By Tara C. Smith
February 25, 2020
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Zoonotic diseases like influenza and many coronaviruses start out in animals, but their biological machinery often enables them to jump to humans.

Abstractions blog

Biodiversity Alters Strategies of Bacterial Evolution

By Jordana Cepelewicz
January 6, 2020
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In evolution, context is everything: Bacteria with neighbors evolve to rebuff viruses in a different way.

Art for "Quanta’s Year in Biology (2019)"
2019 in Review

The Year in Biology

By John Rennie
December 23, 2019
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Researchers explored the zone between life and death, charted the mind’s system for arranging ideas and memories and learned how life’s complexity emerged.

Illustration of DNA that combines elements of mealybug and bacterial imagery.
evolution

Cell-Bacteria Mergers Offer Clues to How Organelles Evolved

By Viviane Callier
October 3, 2019
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Cells in symbiotic partnership, sometimes nested one within the other and functioning like organelles, can borrow from their host’s genes to complete their own metabolic pathways.

Scanning electron micrograph of a cluster of coccolithophores.
ecology

How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry

By Christie Wilcox
October 1, 2019
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Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.

Cichlid fish of diverse colors and shapes swim together.
evolution

New Hybrid Species Remix Old Genes Creatively

By Jonathan Lambert
September 10, 2019
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Clues from fish diversity suggest that interbreeding between species could be a major mechanism of fast speciation.

3D illustration of three human skulls, split into left and right halves and nested one inside the next.
evolution

Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins

By Jordana Cepelewicz
August 29, 2019
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Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the genetic flow went both ways.


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