Five years ago, George Heimpel, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota, travelled to Trinidad in search of insect larvae.He was after several kinds in particular—Philornis downsi, a fly whose parasitic young feed on the hatchlings of tropical birds, and various minuscule wasp species whose own offspring feed on those of the fly. Heimpel hoped that the wasps might solve a problem on the Galápagos Islands, where Philornis has taken a severe toll on native fowl. Those hurt most by the fly, which was likely brought to the archipelago by people, are the Galápagos finches, the songbirds that provided Charles Darwin with some of the earliest evidence of evolution. Currently, eleven of the fourteen finch species are confirmed prey of Philornis larvae, which gorge on the young birds’ blood. With a mortality rate nearing a hundred per cent in some species, the chicks are dropping like, well, flies. The critically endangered mangrove finch is particularly imperilled: if Philornis isn’t stopped, the bird could disappear in a matter of decades, according to mathematical simulations from the University of Utah. It would be the first extinction to befall a Galápagos finch since humans came to the islands, in 1535.
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Galápagos finches, which helped inspire the theory of evolution, are under urgent threat. Will a controversial scientific technique be their deliverance?
Fossils belonging to a previously unknown species of human relative have been discovered in a cave system northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, an international team of scientists announced Thursday.
The discovery of Homo naledi is expected to shed new light on the human family tree, according to a written statement released by the National Geographic Society, the University of Witwatersrand, and the South African Department of Science and Technology.
What’s more, the fossils seem to indicate that H. naledi deposited the bodies of its dead in a remote part of the cave — a behavior previously believed to have been practiced only by humans. In all, an astonishing 1,550 fossils belonging H. naledi were found in the Rising Star cave system.
Are science and religion incompatible? That seems like a rational conclusion, especially in the wake of last month’s combative evolution-vs.-creationism debate, which pitted “Science Guy” Bill Nye against evangelist Ken Ham.
But a new survey of more than 10,000 Americans (including scientists and evangelical Protestants) suggests that there may be more common ground between science and religion than is commonly believed.
The “Religious Understandings Of Science” survey showed that only 27 percent of Americans feel that science and religion are in conflict. In addition, it showed that nearly half of scientists and evangelicals believe that “science and religion can work together and support one another,” Dr. Elaine Howard Ecklund, the Rice University sociologist who conducted the survey, said in a written statement.
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Detail of Michelangelo’s ‘Creation of the Sun and the Moon’ | WIkimedia: Michelangelo Buonarrroti
A genetic variant that increases the risk of testicular cancer may be favored by evolution because it helps protect those with fair skin from the sun’s damaging ultraviolet rays, according to a new study. The finding could account for white men being more susceptible than black men to this type of cancer. It may also explain why testicular cancer is so readily treatable.
Gareth Bond, a molecular biologist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Oxford, U.K., and colleagues hit upon the unexpected tradeoff while studying inherited genes that influence cancer risk. They were especially interested in a gene known as p53, which is mutated in more than half of all cancers. The protein produced by this gene is a key defense for the cell—acting on a wide array of other genes to protect against many types of stress, including DNA damage and oxygen deprivation. It also protects against cancer, telling badly damaged cells to commit suicide. Mutations in p53, or in other genes with which it acts, prevent this order from being received, and damaged cells continue to reproduce, forming tumors.
The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a different archaic human group, the Denisovans, were presented on 18 November at a meeting at the Royal Society in London. They suggest that interbreeding went on between the members of several ancient human-like groups living in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago, including an as-yet unknown human ancestor from Asia.
“What it begins to suggest is that we’re looking at a ‘Lord of the Rings’-type world — that there were many hominid populations,” says Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London who was at the meeting but was not involved in the work.
The first Neanderthal and the Denisovan genome sequences revolutionized the study of ancient human history, not least because they showed that these groups interbred with anatomically modern humans, contributing to the genetic diversity of many people alive today.
The earliest, now-extinct human lineages, once thought to be multiple species, may actually have been one species, researchers now controversially suggest.
Modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only living member of the human lineage, Homo, which is thought to have arisen in Africa about 2 million years ago at the beginning of the ice age, also referred to as the Pleistocene Epoch. Many extinct human species were thought to once roam the Earth, such as Homo habilis, suspected to be among the first stone-tool makers; the relatively larger-brained Homo rudolfensis; the relatively slender Homo ergaster; and Homo erectus, the first to regularly keep tools it made.
To learn more about the roots of the human family tree, scientists investigated a completely intact, approximately 1.8-million-year-old skull excavated from the medieval hilltop town of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia. Archaeological excavations there about 30 years ago unexpectedly revealed that Dmanisi is one of the oldest-known sites for ancient human species out of Africa and the most complete collection of Homo erectus skulls and jaws found so far. The world’s largest, extinct cheetah species once lived in the area, and scientists cannot rule out whether it fed on these early humans.
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An artist’s conception revealing what “Skull 5” may have looked like some 1.8 million years ago when he (the scientists suspect the remains come from a male) lived.
Researchers have reconstructed the structure of 4-billion-year-old proteins.
The primeval proteins, described today (Aug. 8) in the journal Structure, could reveal new insights about the origin of life, said study co-author José Manuel Sanchez Ruíz, a physical chemist at the University of Granada in Spain.
Exactly how life emerged on Earth more than 3 billion years ago is a mystery. Some scientists believe that lightning struck the primordial soup in ammonia-rich oceans, producing the complex molecules that formed the precursors to life. Others believe that chemical reactions at deep-sea hydrothermal vents gave rise to cell membranes and simple cellular pumps. And still others believe that space rocks brought the raw ingredients for life — or perhaps even life itself — to Earth.
But it’s difficult to recreate events that happened so far in the distant past.
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The individual molecules within early Earth’s primordial soup that form the basis of life likely developed in response to natural selection.
How did the chicken lose its penis? By killing off the growing appendage in the egg.
That’s the finding of a new study, which reveals how most birds evolved to lose their external genitalia. Turns out, a particular protein released during the development of chickens, quail and most other birds nips penis development in the bud, according to the new research, published today (June 6) in the journal Current Biology.
The findings have implications for genital development in general, which is important because birth defects in the external genitalia are among the most common congenital defects in humans, said study researcher Martin Cohn, a developmental biologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Florida.
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The chicken embryo develops the beginnings of a penis, but the growth of the organ halts and regresses before hatching.
What might humans look like in the distant future?
Nickolay Lamm, a Pittsburgh-based artist, has created four sci-fi-like illustrations showing one idea of what changes to the human genome may do to the human face 20,000 years, 60,000 years, and 100,000 years hence. The images are based on hypotheses put forth by Dr. Alan Kwan, an expert on computational genomics.
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Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Explore the dynamic relationship between faith and science, where curiosity meets belief. Join us in fostering dialogue, inspiring discovery, and celebrating the profound connections that enrich our understanding of existence.
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James' World 2 