Evolution

(Image: iStock/scyther5)

PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff led a collaborative team of researchers who have discovered key insights into the molecular basis of skin color differences among Africans. “There’s so much genetic diversity in African populations, but they’ve also been historically underrepresented in studies,” Tishkoff says. “Our findings offer more information on these populations and paint a clearer picture of human evolution.”

(Image: Courtesy of Sarah Tishkoff and Alessia Ranciaro)

Members of Tishkoff's research team collecting ethnograpgic information from participants in Ethiopia.

(Image: Courtesy of Sarah Tishkoff)

Image: iStock/cosmin4000

Image: iStock/melitas

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Like Alice furiously running to keep up with the Red Queen, but remaining in one place, two genetic elements in the fruit fly genome are engaged in an evolutionary arms race to simply keep the biological status quo, according to new research by Penn scientists. (Image: John Tenniel in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass)

In a controlled field experiment on Penn’s campus, biologists tracked fruit fly evolution over the course of four months, documenting some of the fastest rates of adaptation ever in animals. (Image: Seth Rudman)

New investigations into cooperation by Penn researchers are illuminating the role that different social settings can have on the spread of prosocial behavior.

With coral reefs under threat from climate change, pollutants, sedimentation, and other factors, Barott and colleagues hope to continue investigating how such challenges may influence coral reproduction and persistence. (Image: Courtesy of Kelsey Speer)