Evolution

Junior Ashna Sethi found an opportunity to delve into one of her passions this summer with paleobiologist Lauren Sallan’s lab in the School of Arts & Sciences.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ September 16, 2020

Ancient DNA from 46,000-year-old bone fragments and a tooth reveals this group likely overlapped with Neanderthals for thousands of years.

Michele W. Berger ・ June 24, 2020

Dineobellator notohesperus lived 67 million years ago. Steven Jasinski, who recently earned his doctorate from the School of Arts and Sciences working with Peter Dodson, also of the School of Veterinary Medicine, led the effort to describe the find.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ March 26, 2020

With a unifying model based in game theory, Andrew Tilman, Joshua Plotkin, and Erol Akçay of the School of Arts and Sciences inform dynamics in fields as diverse as ecology and economics.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ February 19, 2020

Border collies are highly trainable, greyhounds love to chase, and German shepherds make good guard dogs. While the environment plays a role, traits like these are highly heritable. A new study identifies 131 genetic variants associated with breed differences in behavior.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ October 10, 2019

In just five generations, an altered microbiome can lead to genome-wide evolution in fruit flies, according to new research led by Paul Schmidt and postdoc Seth Rudman of the School of Arts and Sciences.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ September 17, 2019

In determining whether there is a universal concept of moral character, research could provide insight into ways to improve our interactions with one another.

Michele W. Berger ・ September 9, 2019

Biologists Erol Akçay and Marco Smolla used mathematical models to show that societies that favor generalists, who have a wide range of skills, are less well-connected than those societies that favor specialists, who are highly skilled at a smaller number of traits.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ August 14, 2019

Auroraceratops, a bipedal dinosaur that lived roughly 115 million years ago, has been newly described by an international team of researchers led by Peter Dodson of the School of Arts and Sciences and School of Veterinary Medicine.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ July 12, 2019

Superstitious beliefs may seem irrational, but they catch on in a society. Using an evolutionary approach to studying the emergence of coordinated behaviors, Erol Akçay and Bryce Morsky showed how a jumble of individual beliefs, including superstitions, coalesce into an accepted social norm.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・ April 17, 2019