The Human Dynasty

Genetic evolution is strongly shaped by genes’ efforts to prevent or tolerate errors in protein production. Previously unexplained patterns of evolution may aim to prevent or tolerate mistranslation.

(University of Texas at Austin) Genetic evolution is strongly shaped by genes’ efforts to prevent or tolerate errors in the production of proteins, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University have found.

(Harvard University) Scientists at Harvard University and the University of Texas at Austin have found that genetic evolution is strongly shaped by genes’ efforts to prevent or tolerate errors in protein production.

A new fossil discovery — the first of its kind from the whole of the Antarctic continent — provides new evidence to support the theory that the polar region was once much warmer. Scientists made the new fossil discovery in the Dry Valleys of the East Antarctic region. The fossils (ostracods) come from an ancient lake — 14 million years old — and are exceptionally well preserved, with all of their soft anatomy in 3-dimensions. This rare find has implications for tracking the polar ice cap.

Tiny fossils time the climate shift which gave rise to Antarctica’s Dry Valleys, a landscape akin to Mars.

Due to the impact of global warming, it has become essential to understand the causes and processes involved in past climate changes. One of the most prominent events in Earth’s climatic evolution was the transition from the global warmth of the Eocene “greenhouse” to the Oligocene “icehouse” glacial conditions.

(University of California – Los Angeles) A UCLA “world summit” will bring together internationally renowned scientists from 12 countries — including Russia, China, Japan, Australia and India — to address ancient microscopic fossils, with implications for finding evidence of life on Mars, July 27-Aug. 2.

Ice age climate change and ancient flooding — but not barriers created by rivers — may have promoted the evolution of new insect species in the Amazon region of South America, a new study suggests. The Amazon basin is home to the richest diversity of life on earth, yet the reasons why this came to be are not well understood.

RNA, the transporter of genetic information within the cell, has emerged from the shadow of DNA to become one of the hottest research areas of molecular biology, with implications for many diseases as well as understanding of evolution. But the field is complex, requiring access to the latest equipment and techniques of imaging, gene expression analysis and bioinformatics, as well as cross-pollination between multiple scientific disciplines.

A complete mandible of Homo erectus was discovered at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team. This mandible is the oldest human fossil uncovered from scientific excavations in Morocco. The discovery will help better define northern Africa’s possible role in first populating southern Europe. A Homo erectus half-jaw had already been found at the Thomas I quarry in 1969, but it was a chance discovery and therefore with no archeological context.