One wasp species has evolved the ability to recognize individual faces among their peers—something that most other insects cannot do—signaling an evolution in how they have learned to work together.
Source: ‘Profound’ evolution: Wasps learn to recognize faces
An international team of scientists report in the journal Genome Biology results from a pilot project, co-led by Robert Waterhouse, Group Leader at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and University of Lausanne, to kick-start the global sequencing initiative of thousands of arthropods.
The ancient-genomics revolution is finally reaching the cradle of humanity: Africa. Researchers have sequenced the genomes of four children who lived in what is now Cameroon several thousand years ago.Their genomes — the first to be collected from any ancient human in West Africa — raise questions about the origins of a migration that carried languages and agriculture across the continent, and hint at older events in human history, such as the emergence of Homo sapiens and its spread out of Africa.
Source: Ancient African Genomes Offer Glimpse Into Early Human History | Portside
Rob Sheldon: On the whole, Darwinism looks like it makes short-term gains at the cost of long-term stagnation. It clearly sacrifices the group for the sake of a few aggressive individuals.
Source: French administration tries to subject scientists to “Darwinism”; revolt follows | Uncommon Descent
The finding deepens our understanding of how modern life originated on Earth and shows there’s a lot we still don’t know about our planet’s history.
Source: A Wild Discovery About Fungi Just Changed Earth’s Evolutionary Timeline – VICE
A Dutch computer scientist and philosopher who has reflected deeply on the mind–matter problem finds himself asking, how can serious scientists or philosophers convince themselves that their own consciousness “doesn’t exist” or is a “mistaken construct”? What, exactly, is thinking the thought that
Source: Why Would Philosophers Deny That Consciousness Is Real? | Mind Matters
A bizarre tentacled microbe discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean may help explain the origins of complex life on this planet and solve one of the deepest mysteries in biology, scientists reported on Wednesday.Two billion years ago, simple cells gave rise to far more complex cells. Biologists have struggled for decades to learn how it happened.
Source: This Strange Microbe May Mark One of Life’s Great Leaps | Portside
Scientists have synthetically engineered mosquitoes that halt the transmission of the dengue virus. Biologists developed a human antibody for dengue suppression in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the insects that spread dengue. The development marks the first engineered approach in mosquitoes that targets the four known types of dengue, improving upon previous designs that addressed single strains.
Source: Mosquitoes engineered to repel dengue virus — ScienceDaily
Looking past the tabloid prose, they say they found that selection can occur at the level of the epigenome. So what becomes of neo-Darwinism if selection isn’t tied to the all-powerful but accidental gene?
Source: Researchers: Basic tenet of evolutionary theory “upended” by new find | Uncommon Descent
Darwiniana 