Updated: 2010-09-30 06:10:15
Computational biologists at the University of Pennsylvania say that species are still accumulating on Earth but at a slower rate than in the past. In the study, reported in the journal PLoS Biology, Penn scientists developed a novel computational approach to infer the dynamics of species diversification using the family trees of present-day species. Using nine patterns of diversification as alternative models, they examined 289 phylogenies, or evolutionary trees, representing amphibians, arthropods, birds, mammals, mollusks and flowering plants........
Updated: 2010-09-25 23:10:15
The sequencing and analysis of the genome for the Criollo variety of the cacao tree, generally considered to produce the world's finest chocolate, was completed by an international team led by Claire Lanaud of CIRAD in France, with Mark Guiltinan of Penn State University, along with researchers from 18 other institutions. "The large amount of information generated by this project dramatically changes the status of this tropical plant and its potential interest for the scientific community," said Guiltinan, professor of plant molecular biology........
Updated: 2010-09-25 23:10:15
Back to the main animal science blog page Subscribe To Animal Science Blog RSS Feed Adapting to Darkness Eyed and Eyeless Astyanax mexicanus fish : Except for the loss of eyes and pigment seen in the cave-dwelling form , the surface-dwelling fish at top and cave-dwelling fish at bottom are hard to tell apart . You can study evolution very nicely if you have both the ancestral and derived forms of evolving animals . University of Maryland biologists have identified how changes in both behavior and genetics led to the evolution of the Mexican blind cavefish Astyanax mexicanus from its sighted , surface-dwelling ancestor . In research reported in the August 12, 2010 online edition of the journal Current Biology , Professor William R . Jeffery , together with postdoctoral associates Masato
Updated: 2010-09-14 16:09:30
Endoscopy and colonoscopy are well-known tools of the physician, minimally invasive devices that navigate the channels of the digestive system to spot cancers, ulcers, and other defects once difficult to spot without major surgery. In the shadow of these procedures lies bronchoscopy, which uses similar technology to explore the labyrinth of the lungs. With the [...]
Updated: 2010-09-08 22:50:19
My alma mater is number one! Whoo hoo! Read the comments on this post...
Updated: 2010-09-08 21:25:25
By comparing two species of ants, Shelley Berger, PhD, the Daniel S. Och University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and his colleagues Danny Reinberg, PhD, New York University, and Juergen Liebig, PhD, Arizona State University, have established an important new avenue of research for epigenetics -- the study of how the expression or suppression of particular genes affects an organism's characteristics, development, and even behavior........
Updated: 2010-09-08 21:25:24
Researchers at the University of Oregon have determined the fine-scale genetic structure of the first animal to show an evolutionary response to rapid climate change. They used a high-throughput sequencing technique called Restriction-site Associated DNA (RAD) tagging to make the discovery. Their results, which focus on the pitcher plant mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii, are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)........
