The Games Genes Play: Algorithm Helps Explain Sex in Evolution
What do you get when you mix theorists in computer science with evolutionary biologists? You get an algorithm to explain sex. It turns out that 155 years after Charles Darwin…
Evolutionary Biology
Chimpanzees Spontaneously Initiate and Maintain Cooperative Behavior
Without any pre-training or restrictions in partner choice among chimpanzees, researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, found for the first time that chimpanzees housed in a…
Microbes May Drive Evolution of New Animal Species
A little over a year ago, Bordenstein, a biologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and his then-graduate student, Robert Brucker, mated two incompatible species of wasp in the lab,…
Intertwined Evolution of Human Brain and Brawn
The cognitive differences between humans and our closest living cousins, the chimpanzees, are staggeringly obvious. Although we share strong superficial physical similarities, we have been able to use our incredible…
Dogs Follow Human Voice Direction to Find Hidden Food
Dogs and puppies are gifted at interpreting human communicative hints, and previous studies showed that they use human visual cues like pointing or gazing in order to find hidden food….
Janet Buckner Awarded Fulbright Fellowship
Janet Buckner, a graduate student in UCLA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, has been awarded a Fulbright fellowship for her research on primate phylogenetics in the Brazilian Amazon, for May through…