Charles Darwin based his groundbreaking theory of natural selection on the realization that genetic variation among organisms is the key to evolution.
Some individuals are better adapted to a given environment than others, making them more l…
Tag Archives | evolutionary biologists
Evolution by mistake
Like humans, amoebae pack a lunch before they travel
Some amoebae do what many people do. Before they travel, they pack a lunch.
In results of a study reported today in the journal Nature, evolutionary biologists Joan Strassmann and David Queller of Rice University show that long-studied social am…
Contact with dads drops when women ovulate
Through an innovative use of cell phone records, researchers at UCLA, the University of Miami and Cal State, Fullerton, have found that women appear to avoid contact with their fathers during ovulation.
“Women call their dads less frequently on …
Evolutionary psychology: Why daughters don’t call their dads
CORAL GABLES, FL (December 7, 2010) — Previous research has shown that when women are in their most fertile phase they become more attracted to certain qualities such as manly faces, masculine voices and competitive abilities. A new study by Unive…
Giants among us: Paper explores evolution of the worlds largest mammals
Athens, Ga. — The largest mammal that ever walked the earth¬ — Indricotherium transouralicum, a hornless rhinoceros-like herbivore that weighed approximately seventeen tons and stood about eighteen feet high at the shoulder — lived in Eurasia a…
Biologist Offers a Solution to the ‘Freeloaders Paradox’
Freeloaders ?? individuals eager to join social groups, but who once in, tend to avoid pulling their fair share of the chores ?? have long posed something of a problem for evolutionary biologists. In theory, because freeloaders don?t expend the efforts and energy of their more civic-minded neighbors, they should be able to translate that energy into more offspring, spreading their “slacker genes” and overrunning the world with offspring of similar ilk. But that doesn’t happen, and an Arizona researcher thinks she knows why.