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Continuando la celebración del tema de Octubre en el Año de la Ciencia, las ciencias de la tierra y el planeta Tierra, la historia de este mes se centra en cómo la geografía y la geología han moldeado la evolución de la vida en uno de los lugares más singulares de la Tierra. Madagascar, la cuarta isla más grande del mundo, se encuentra en el Océano índico a varios cientos de kilómetros de la costa sureste de áfrica y constituye el hogar de una notable variedad de especies vegetales y animales, incluido el aye aye, la fossa, el camaleón y el árbol baobab...

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This research profile follows Dr. Rosemary Gillespie to Hawaii as she evaluates hypotheses about the evolution of the colorful happy-face spider.

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The discovery of the platypus had the scientific world in an uproar with its mammal-like and bird-like features. How was one to classify the platypus? This case study uses this issue to model the scientific process, with scientists arguing, debating, collecting more evidence, and revising their opinions as new data become available.

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Students learn how artificial selection can be used to develop new dog breeds with characteristics that make the dogs capable of performing a desirable task.

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When biologist Lynn Margulis revived the strange-sounding idea that the merging of cells played a prominent role in the evolution of complex life, the scientific community roundly rejected the notion. Today, this idea is accepted as a textbook fact. Learn more about the evidence and social factors that spurred the acceptance of this key aspect of evolutionary theory.
This article is available from the Understanding Science website.

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A new species of velvet worm was recently discovered in Vietnam. This news brief from September 2013 describes the key position of velvet worms in evolutionary history and how they help us better understand the fossil record of the Cambrian period.

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The ability to digest milk is a recent evolutionary innovation that has spread through some human populations. This news brief from April 2007 describes how evolution has allowed different human populations to take advantage of the nutritional possibilities of dairying and links evolution with the prevalence of lactose tolerance among people of different ethnicities.

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This news brief from April 2013 describes new research on the origin of American cattle breeds. The story told by the cows' genes crisscrosses the trajectory of human evolutionary history from wild aurochs that lived alongside Neanderthals, to Christopher Columbus and, ultimately, the American West.

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This news brief from November 2009 focuses on how changes in atmospheric chemistry may have factored into the evolution of life on Earth, specifically, life's quadrillion-fold growth spurt from microscopic bacteria to organisms the size of the blue whale.

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Recently, political unrest in Madagascar has threatened to set back the island's expanding conservation efforts, and criminals have taken advantage of the instability, looting protected forests for rare wood. This news story from October 2009 turns back the clock to consider the biogeographic processes that made Madagascar into a biodiversity hotspot in the first place.

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Understanding the evolution of fire ants may help scientists control the spread of these pests, which have already taken over much of the U.S.

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This research profile follows ornithologist Kim Bostwick through the jungles of Ecuador and the halls of museums as she investigates the evolution of an exotic bird's complex mating dance.

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Students formulate explanations and models that simulate structural and biochemical data as they investigate the misconception that humans evolved from apes.

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You might be surprised to learn that descendants of an ancient bacterium are living in every cell of your body! Find out how endosymbiosis factored into the evolution of your own cells and learn about a modern example of this process.

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This set of teaching materials aims to help instructors engage their students with the primary literature in evolutionary biology through a "journal club" that can be implemented in a discussion section or smaller class. It includes several helpful tools: annotated articles, a reading guide, additional suggested reading, and tips for students leading a discussion of a journal article.

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In lecture three of a four part series, evolutionary biologist David Kingsley examines the original objections to Darwin's theory and shows how modern evidence supports the theory.

This lecture is available from Howard Hughes' BioInteractive website.

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In this set of advanced lessons, students use different types of data to infer/interpret phylogenies among domains, within the vertebrates, and within primates while reflecting on how they answer the question "What do you think it means to be human?" and choose a characteristic that changed substantially in the human family tree to develop a scientific argument based on evidence for when the character evolved.

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