Evolution

Delivering electric shocks to 1mm-long roundworms may sound rather meanspirited, but scientists have used this stimuli to uncover some curious behaviors of C. elegans that could further our understanding of human emotional mechanisms.

About 66 million years ago, the reign of reptiles came to a dramatic end. Scientists have now predicted that mammals will meet their maker in a similar cataclysm in about 250 million years’ time, as the continents collide to form a new supercontinent.

Hijacking the body of another animal is nothing new in the opportunistic world of parasitism. But for the first time, scientists have observed how one crafty flatworm can switch ‘zombie mode’ on and off, leaving its host ant stuck between life and death.

In the third BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition, a stunning snap of the invasive orange pore fungus (Favolaschia calocera) has not just encroached on native species’ territory but taken out the top spot in the annual contest.

Anthropologists have assembled the most complete Stone Age family tree, spanning 7 generations. Genetic studies of the remains of dozens of people in a burial site in France reveal some surprising insights into family and social dynamics of the time.

The matriarchal structure of the killer whale society is well known, with females living up to 90 years and playing a crucial role in passing on knowledge to the youngsters. Now, it seems the elders also help keep the trouble-making boys out of fights.

Most snakes can only see the colors blue and green, along with ultraviolet light in some cases. New research, however, suggests that sea snakes have evolved to actually regain the wider-color vision of their earliest ancestors.

How small a canvas can evolution work on? Scientists have experimented with a synthetic lifeform designed to have the simplest possible genome, and found that given the chance it can evolve lost fitness back, showing that indeed, “life finds a way.”

For the first time, scientists have pieced together the complex muscle structure of 3.18-million-year-old hominin icon, Lucy. It confirms popular thought that our ancient relative was able to walk much like us, and also that she never skipped leg day.

Scientists have discovered evidence of a “lost world” of previously unknown lifeforms that inhabited Earth about a billion years ago. Fossilized steroids were identified in rocks all over the world, produced by a group called the "Protosterol Biota."

Scientists have observed the first known “virgin birth” in a female crocodile, kept alone in captivity for 16 years. The find reveals that this unusual form of reproduction is possible in more species than we thought – including, perhaps, dinosaurs.

If evolutionary biologists are the detectives of the natural world’s past mysteries, then the phylogenic tree is their cork board of linked crime-scene suspects. With this, they offer some big news about the origins of flowering plant life on Earth.