http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- With thousands of stinging cells that can emit deadly venom from tentacles that can reach ten feet in length, the 50 or so species of box jellyfish have long been of interest to scientists and to the public. Yet little has been known about the evolution of this early branch in the animal tree of life. http://www.physorg.com/news177779139.html Biology Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:06:16 EST news177779139 When the ancestors of living cetaceans -whales, dolphins and porpoises -first dipped their toes into water, a series of evolutionary changes were sparked that ultimately nestled these swimming mammals into the larger hoofed animal group. But what happened first, a change from a plant-based diet to a carnivorous diet, or the loss of their ability to walk? http://www.physorg.com/news173031353.html Biology Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:00:04 EST news173031353 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from Yale University and Dartmouth College has used microRNA data to investigate the evolutionary relationships of annelids, which include earthworms, leeches and bristle worms, to show that this large animal group evolved as a single, unique evolutionary branch. Their work represents the first time that microRNAs have been used to study the evolutionary relationships between organisms. http://www.physorg.com/news171716884.html Biology Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:08:28 EST news171716884 Lichens are the classic example of a symbiotic relationship. Both the fungal and photobiont components of the lichen benefit from the relationship and often are unable to survive without each other. Recent research by Dr. Robert Lücking (The Field Museum, Chicago), Dr. James Lawrey (George Mason University, Virginia) and a team of colleagues from around the world has put a new spin on this relationship. http://www.physorg.com/news170093604.html Biology Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:13:50 EST news170093604 During a seminar at another institution several years ago, University of Chicago paleontologist David Jablonski fielded a hostile question: Why bother classifying organisms according to their physical appearance, let alone analyze their evolutionary dynamics, when molecular techniques had already invalidated that approach? http://www.physorg.com/news160157479.html Other Sciences Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:11:43 EST news160157479 A new University of Florida study based on DNA analysis from living flowering plants shows that the ancestors of most modern trees diversified extremely rapidly 90 million years ago, ultimately leading to the formation of forests that supported similar evolutionary bursts in animals and other plants. http://www.physorg.com/news153422711.html Other Sciences Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:26:42 EST news153422711 A new and comprehensive analysis confirms that the evolutionary relationships among animals are not as simple as previously thought. The traditional idea that animal evolution has followed a trajectory from simple to complex -from sponge to chordate -meets a dramatic exception in the metazoan tree of life. New work suggests that the so-called "lower" metazoans (including Placozoa, corals, and jellyfish) evolved in parallel to "higher" animals (all other metazoans, from flatworms to chordates). It also appears that Placozoans -large amoeba-shaped, multi-cellular animals -have passed over sponges and other organisms as an animal that most closely mirrors the root of this tree of life. http://www.physorg.com/news152259480.html Biology Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:18:25 EST news152259480 It's confirmed: Even though flatback turtles dine on fish, shrimp, and mollusks, they are closely related to primarily herbivorous green sea turtles. New genetic research carried out by Eugenia Naro-Maciel, a Marine Biodiversity Scientist at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues clarifies our understanding of the evolutionary relationships among all seven sea turtle species. http://www.physorg.com/news143297635.html Biology Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:53:55 EST news143297635