evolution

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The Mind Thinks More Than It Knows
The Mind Thinks More Than It Knows

The Mind Thinks More Than It Knows

Subconscious works behind the scenes of decisions, judgments

(Newser) - After just handling a stranger’s coffee, people make subconscious judgments about personality, psychologists say. Asked to hold a lab assistant’s cup of hot or iced coffee, Yale students associated cold drinkers with selfish personalities, the Times reports. The experiment is part of a body of research that leads...

Butterfly Evolves in Blink of Eye
Butterfly Evolves in Blink of Eye

Butterfly Evolves in Blink of Eye

Parasite forces hyper-speed adaptation in male blue moon butterflies

(Newser) - One of the fastest evolutionary changes ever observed has been witnessed by scientists studying butterflies in the South Pacific, the BBC reports. Blue Moon butterflies managed to fight off a deadly parasitic bacteria by developing suppressor genes to fight the bacteria in just six years. Hard-hit males rebounded from 1%...

The Cat Did Not Walk by Himself
The Cat Did Not Walk by Himself

The Cat Did Not Walk by Himself

(Newser) - Unlike most animals who were domesticated by man, cats, you cat owners will not be surprised to learn, domesticated themselves.  A study published in Science concludes that some 12,000 years ago cats, attracted by mice, who were themselves attracted by grain which man had just figured out how...

Evolutionary Theory Takes Big Leap With Evo-Devo

Research in embryonic development reveals how organisms evolve

(Newser) - Evolutionary theory is in the early days of its third great expansion, the New York Times reports, following Darwin’s original formulation almost 150 years ago and the so-called “modern synthesis” of 1930-50. Dubbed “evo-devo” because it focuses on the embryonic development of organisms, the newest science explores...

Early Immunity to Chimp Virus Leaves Humans Open to HIV

An advantage 4M years ago is a weakness now

(Newser) - Humans are more susceptible to HIV than other primates because our ancestors evolved a protein that could fight off a different retrovirus that infected chimps, says Scientific American. The most conspicuous difference between the chimpanzee genome sequenced in 2005 and the human one, says a Seattle virologist, was 130 copies...

Big Bird Dazzles Paleontologists
Big Bird Dazzles Paleontologists

Big Bird Dazzles Paleontologists

Fossil unearthed in Gobi desert reveals record of 26-foot-long 'gigantic chicken'

(Newser) - The largest birdlike creature on record stood over 16 feet tall, weighed a ton and a half, and had sharp claws but no teeth. The Chinese paleontologist who unearthed the creature's thigh bone wasn't sure what it was, he tells the San Francisco Chronicle, but as he listed the possibilities...

Creationists Open History Museum
Creationists Open History Museum

Creationists Open History Museum

On the sixth day, God created dinosaurs, says curator

(Newser) - A $27 million museum opening in Kentucky next week promises a different kind of take on natural history: a biblical one. At the Creation Museum, the Earth is 6,000 years old, evolution is a yarn, and dinosaurs were booked on Noah's Ark.

Modified Mosquitoes Could Fight the Spread of Malaria

(Newser) - Genetically modified mosquitoes that cannot pass on malaria may help reduce the spread of the disease that now causes a million deaths a year, mostly children. A new study shows that the lab-designed bugs could out-breed their natural competition, eventually driving them out altogether and eliminating the route through which...

Fossil Proves We're All African
Fossil Proves
We're All African

Fossil Proves We're All African

Moroccan find sets human origins back 100,000 years

(Newser) - An ancient jawbone found in Morocco suggests that modern human ancestry emerged 100,000 years earlier than previously believed—and in Africa, rather than Europe. Until now, scientists believed that modern humans didn't emerge until 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. But the Moroccan bone is 160,000 years...

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