Instead of building a time machine to travel back to prehistoric times, scientists might be able to engineer dinosaurs out of chickens to live in our own backyards. In a study published this past January in the Journal of Organic Evolution, researchers were able to genetically modify chicken embryo legs[Read More…]
Tag: evolution
All for one and one for all
The origin of life on Earth remains a heavily researched topic in evolutionary biology. Among the myriad of questions yet to be answered is how simple, single-celled organisms evolved to be complex and multicellular. While the mechanism for this phenomenon has been elucidated in plants and fungi, little is known[Read More…]
Research Briefs—Oct. 28, 2014
Physicists transport marbles with optical tractor beam The tractor beam—a long-distance invisible attraction beam—is a legendary staple in science fiction. In real life, moving objects using only light seems absurd, if not impossible. However, in a paper published in Nature Photonics, a team of Australian and American physicists successfully transferred[Read More…]
McGill researchers spotlight Polypterus fish
A team of researchers led by Dr. Hans Larsson from McGill University has made a key discovery in the process by which creatures evolved from aquatic to terrestrial animals. The study used the Polypterus fish as a means to investigate phenotypic evolutionary changes.