COLOR KEY: Artificial Life; Origin of Life, Eukaryotes, Organelles;
Origin/Evolution of Prokaryotes, Viruses, Introns, etc.
Ancient Birds; Dinosaurs; Other Ancient Reptiles
Human Origins and Evolution; Domestication
Other Evolutionary Biology
Political, Religious, and Educational Issues
Pennisi, 2008 Feb 29. Rocking the Cradle of Humanity. (restricted access) Science 319:1182-1183. "The nation of Ethiopia is seeking to leverage its past--including its most famous daughter, the hominid called Lucy--to help secure its future."
Kokko, 2008 Feb 29. Happening Now, Outdoors. Science 319:1187-1188. "Drawing on decades of research in the Galapagos (especially their own work), the authors offer a comprehensive introduction to Darwin's finches and to evolutionary radiations on islands."
?, 2008 Feb 28. Lone Star vs creationism.
(restricted access) Nature 451:1030. "The battle against anti-scientific literalism continues. Next stop Texas."
Balter, 2008 Feb 22. How Human Intelligence Evolved--Is It Science or 'Paleofantasy'? Science 319:1028. "At the AAAS annual meeting here from February 14 to 18, a panel of top researchers discussed what, if anything, scientists have learned about the evolution of human intelligence."
Couzin, 2008 Feb 22. Crossing the Divide. (restricted access) Science 319:1034-1036. "Like others who have rejected creationism and embraced evolution, paleontologist Stephen Godfrey is still recovering from the traumatic journey. "
Keeling, 2008 Feb 21. Bridge over troublesome plastids. Nature 451:896. "Identification of a direct link between apicomplexan parasites and their algal ancestors is a development full of promise. It illuminates a dark corner in the evolution of photosynthesis, and further insights are to come."
Abedin and King, 2008 Feb 15. The Premetazoan Ancestry of Cadherins. Science 319:946-948. "A close unicellular relative of metazoans unexpectedly contains 23 genes for a cell adhesion protein, suggesting a role for the protein in the evolution of multicellularity."
Speakman, 2008 Feb 14. A first for bats. Nature 451:774. "Which came first as bats evolved — flight or echolocation? Newly described fossils favour the flight-first hypothesis. But these creatures may have been otherwise equipped for flying at night."
Hendry, 2008 Feb 14. Darwin in the fossils. (restricted access) Nature 451:779. "Adaptation by natural selection is thought to drive evolution. Although it has been difficult to confirm this process in the fossil record, evidence has been there all along: we just haven't been looking properly."
Padian, 2008 Feb 7. Darwin's enduring legacy. Nature 451:632. "As the 200th year since the great naturalist's birth begins, Kevin Padian looks forward to a season of celebration by outlining how Darwin's ideas changed scientific thinking."
Gouy and Chaussidon, 2008 Feb 7. Ancient bacteria liked it hot. Nature 451:635. "Proteins from ancestral bacteria have been modelled and reconstructed. Strikingly, the heat stability of these proteins parallels the temperatures of their ocean habitats, as determined from the geological record."
Phillips, 2008 Feb 7. Who shouldn't be your daddy. (restricted access) Nature 451:640. "Unusual reproductive incompatibility has been discovered between two strains of a nematode worm. This finding indicates that natural selection can generate long-term divergence within self-fertilizing populations."
Atkinson et al., 2008 Feb 1. Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts. Science 319:588. "A study of Bantu, Indo-European, Austronesian, and Polynesian languages shows that up to one-third of their words arose in rapid evolutionary bursts from the predecessor tongue."
Jones, 2008 Jan 31. Killer instincts. (restricted access) Nature 451:512. "What can evolution say about why humans kill — and about why we do so less than we used to?"
Balter, 2008 Jan 25. Why We're Different: Probing the Gap Between Apes and Humans. (restricted access) Science 319:404-405. "Researchers at a high-level meeting probe the ancient question of what sets the human brain apart from those of other primates. "
Rokas, 2008 Jan 25. Lining Up to Avoid Bias. Science 319:416-417. "Algorithms that align DNA sequences can introduce bias and uncertainty into evolutionary analyses."
Wong et al., 2008 Jan 25. Alignment Uncertainty and Genomic Analysis. Science 319:473-476. "Comparative evolutionary genomics can be improved by taking into account the uncertainties inherent in aligning genes from organism to organism."
Brumfiel, 2008 Jan 24. Creationists launch 'science' journal. (restricted access) Nature 451:382. "Research within a biblical framework to be peer reviewed."
Holden, 2008 Jan 18. Polynesians Took the Express Train Through Melanesia to the Pacific. Science 319:270. "A new study published this week supports the "express train" theory of the peopling of the far-flung islands of Remote Oceania, which posits that people from Taiwan moved rapidly through Melanesia, leaving little genetic footprint."
?, 2008 Jan 10. Spread the word. (restricted access) Nature 451:108. "Evolution is a scientific fact, and every organization whose research depends on it should explain why."
Caron, 2008 Jan 10. Ancient worms in armour. Nature 451:133. "It requires a quirk of fossilization for the soft parts of an animal to be preserved. Study of such a specimen of the mysterious machaeridians provides these organisms with a well defined evolutionary home."
Malone and Michalak, 2008 Jan 4. Physiological Sex Predicts Hybrid Sterility Regardless of Genotype. Science 319:59. "An apparent violation of Haldane’s rule (in hybrid organisms the heterogametic sex tends to be sterile) in frogs can be explained by postulating that males have evolved faster."
Shen et al., 2008 Jan 4. The Avalon Explosion: Evolution of Ediacara Morphospace. Science 319:81-84. "Earth’s first complex life 575 million years ago rapidly encompassed the full range of ediacara morphologies before declining, a pattern like that in the later Cambrian explosion."
Nash et al., 2008 Jan 4. A Mosaic of Chemical Coevolution in a Large Blue Butterfly. Science 319:88-90. "Because they are coated with a specific chemical, the larvae of a butterfly are adopted and cared for by an ant species, a relationship that shows signs of ongoing coevolution."
