evolution

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Neanderthals Wore Makeup, Jewelry
 Neanderthals Wore 
 Makeup, Jewelry 
KNUCKLE-DRAGGING VANITY
Jan 12, 2010 10:22 AM CST

Neanderthals Wore Makeup, Jewelry

Find suggests they were just as advanced as early humans

(Newser) - Our Neanderthal cousins apparently picked their knuckles off the ground long enough to dabble in makeup and baubles, leading researchers to suggest they were no less intelligent than our direct ancestors at the same time in history. Newly unearthed evidence of 50,000-year-old jewelry and even makeup in a cave...

Pregnancy Boosts Awareness of Bad Vibes
 Pregnancy Boosts 
 Awareness of Bad Vibes 
study says
Dec 22, 2009 12:03 PM CST

Pregnancy Boosts Awareness of Bad Vibes

Researchers say finding fits with protective evolutionary adaptation

(Newser) - Women get wiser to the emotional states of upset and angry people around them as their pregnancies progress, perhaps as a way for mothers-to-be to recognize threats. A study asked women to identify the emotions of people in a set of photographs in their first trimester and again near the...

Birdfeeding Changes Evolution

Free lunch rocks birds' futures

(Newser) - Darwin never made allowances for birdfeeders, but modern-day scientists have discovered that giving feathered friends a helping hand can have profound evolutionary consequences. Filling up birdfeeders with seeds and suet can convince birds to hang around for the free lunch, rather than take off of their migratory routes, researchers have...

Chinese Gene Mapping Links Dialects, Disease

Study of 8,200 Chinese from north and south shows .3% variation

(Newser) - A massive gene study of ethnic Chinese in the north and south of the country has revealed key divergences that correspond to dialect groups and could account for some hereditary diseases. The study of 8,200 people from 10 provinces and Singapore found significant variation in .3% of the genome,...

Students School Kirk Cameron on Darwin

Child actor-turned-creationist gets schooled by UCLA students

(Newser) - Kirk Cameron embarked on his Darwin-is-like-Hitler tour, visiting UCLA last week to pass out copies of a "revised" edition of On the Origin of the Species that tries to compare the two historical figures—and video has surfaced of the former Growing Pains actor getting taken down by a...

Brits Hunt Stolen Darwin Notes
 Brits Hunt Stolen Darwin Notes 
150 years ago today...
Nov 24, 2009 10:24 AM CST

Brits Hunt Stolen Darwin Notes

Missing Galapagos notebook sought

(Newser) - Amid a celebration, a mystery: A fresh appeal has been launched to find a missing notebook that Charles Darwin may have used to write On the Origin of Species, which was published 150 years ago today. The journal records Darwin's observations in the Galapagos Island and Peru. Authorities believe it...

Women Getting Shorter, Heavier

They'll lose 1 inch and gain 2 pounds by 2409

(Newser) - Humans are still changing, and the female winners of the evolutionary crapshoot will be shorter and heavier down the line. A new study that tracked the motherly productivity of the slim-and-tall set alongside their squatter peers concludes that a lower center of gravity will win out in the end, and...

Scientists Unearth Fossils of 'Missing Link' Flying Reptiles

Researchers believe Darwinopterus is proof of modular evolution

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered the remains of a flying reptile in China that they believe represents the "missing link" in a controversial theory of evolution. The reptile—named Darwinopterus in honor of Charles Darwin—lived some 160 million years ago and has features from both early, short-tailed pterodactyls and their...

Fossil Find Shakes Up Evolution Timeline

Ardipithecus ramidus lived in trees and walked upright

(Newser) - A primate fossil found in Africa in 1994 predates the famous “Lucy” skeleton by 1 million years and offers clues to human evolution, researchers say. “This is huge,” a paleoanthropologist tells the Washington Post. “This is the biggest discovery really since” Lucy. The researchers believe “...

Oldest Feathered Dino Found in China

Dinosaur is earliest known feathered species, may have flown on four wings

(Newser) - A fossilized creature found in northern China puts an end to any controversy over whether birds descended from dinosaurs, say Chinese scientists. The dinosaur, who lived some 10 million years before Archaeopteryx, is the oldest feather species ever discovered. The feathers cover its arms, tail, and also its feet, leading...

Religious America Snubs Darwin Film: Producer

Brits 'can't imagine religion in America': Jeremy Thomas

(Newser) - The producer of a new film about Charles Darwin says he hasn't landed a US distribution deal because Americans can't stand the theory of evolution, the Daily Mail reports. Creation, the story of Darwin's struggle between reason and faith as he wrote The Origin of Species, has opened the Toronto...

Big Business Wants to Put Global Warming on Trial

(Newser) - Facing broad new US regulations on emissions, big business wants to put the science behind global warming before a judge, the Los Angeles Times reports. “It would be evolution versus creationism,” says an executive for the US Chamber of Commerce, which is pushing the idea of a public...

Climate Change Already Causing Evolution

(Newser) - Global warming is changing the face of the planet, and a key panel estimates that a quarter of the world's species will die out—but a few organisms are already evolving to survive in a hotter world. In the past few years Scottish sheep have become smaller, while species of...

Cooking: What Separates Men From Apes (and Women)
Cooking: What Separates Men From Apes (and Women)
INTERVIEW
Jul 29, 2009 1:14 PM CDT

Cooking: What Separates Men From Apes (and Women)

And anthropologically speaking, women are always the cooks

(Newser) - Cooking—not just eating—meat is what prompted human evolution, Richard Wrangham argues in his book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, and he discusses his beliefs—including an opposition to the trend of raw diets—with Salon. “Raw foodists argue quite strongly that it is our natural...

Sorry, Nike, We Evolved to Run Barefoot: Author

(Newser) - Humans may be built for day-long hunts that could take a pack 100 miles, all without shoes, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. “We didn’t evolve as weight lifters, yoga gurus, or swimmers,” says barefoot runner Christopher McDougall, whose book Born to Run explores the hypothesis. “We evolved...

Global Warming Shrinking Sheep

Warmer winters make evolutionary drive to grow do a U-turn

(Newser) - Add it to the list of weird things blamed on climate change: smaller sheep. Scientists say Scotland's warmer winters explain why a wild herd on an uninhabited northern island are a full 5% smaller than they were in the '80s, the BBC reports. The theory says that only big sheep...

Mammals Evolve Faster in Hot Weather: Study

Faster metabolism thought to be why

(Newser) - Evolution happens faster in warmer climates, a new study finds. Researchers found that DNA changes more frequently among mammals in the species-rich tropics than among comparable species elsewhere, the BBC reports. Scientists believe the germ cells that become sperm and eggs divide more often in hotter weather, perhaps because those...

Stone Age Humans Found Wisdom in Crowds: Study

(Newser) - The jump in human ingenuity during the Stone Age could have resulted not from a biological change but from closer, more populous communities, NPR reports. “Anything that we teach is going to be susceptible to loss, or to decay,” said the British scientist who cooked up the theory....

47M-Year-Old Fossil Evolutionary 'Aunt' to Humans

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered the oldest intact primate fossil on record, ABC News reports. Nicknamed “Ida,” the 47-million-year-old lemur-like creature had opposable thumbs, fingernails instead of claws, and legs that could have evolved to walk upright. Scientists don’t think Ida is a direct ancestor of humans, though. “...

Island 'Hobbits' Separate Human Species

Separate species may have evolved from homo erectus

(Newser) - Two new reports forward the theory that the tiny people who roamed an Indonesian island 8,000 years ago were a separate species of human, the BBC reports, not just pygmy versions of homo sapiens. The biggest clue is the feet of the “hobbits,” which are distinctly primitive...

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