A new study has rewritten the conventionally understood evolutionary history of certain ion channels -- proteins critical for electrical signaling in the nervous system. The study shows that the ...

Birds are the most diverse land vertebrate on the planet, and now scientists have constructed a complete evolutionary tree of the 11,000 or so known species. This data came from hundreds of studies ...

The story of primates is a tale of incredible variety and ancient roots, told through the lens of science, DNA, and time itself. These creatures, ranging from massive gorillas to tiny mouse lemurs, ...

A groundbreaking study has traced the 66-million-year evolutionary history of primates and overturned conventional thought that our ancestors originally inhabited warm tropical forests. Using advanced ...

Phylogenetic networks offer a nuanced framework for representing evolutionary relationships beyond the conventional tree model. By incorporating reticulate events—such as hybridisation, horizontal ...

Bears look like textbook mammals, but hidden in their evolutionary history are two dramatic departures from the standard blueprint of growth and adaptation. For the first time, scientists have ...

Over 100,000 years ago, a mysterious group of ancient humans walked the lands of eastern Asia. Known as the Juluren—meaning “large head people”—they’ve recently been introduced to science under the ...

Demographic history reconstruction suggested that additional gene flow from Altaic people influenced the northernmost Han Chinese population. Complex biological adaptation signatures associated with ...

The order Primates consists of not only our closest relatives on earth, the seven great apes, but also over 450 species of monkeys, lemurs, lorises, and galagos. Primates are fantastically diverse, ...

Sauropod dinosaurs, renowned for their immense size and distinctive body plan, represent one of the most successful groups of terrestrial herbivores in Earth's history. Emerging in the Early Jurassic ...

New research offers insight into the evolutionary history of amylase genes, which are key to our ability to eat and digest starchy food. A study found that human ancestors started carrying multiple ...