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148 articles
Comb Jellies: The Ancient and Ethereal World of Ctenophores Floating through the world's oceans are some of the most visually stunning and biologically enigmatic creatures on Earth: the c...
Read Comb Jellies: The Ancient and Ethereal World of CtenophoresChoanozoa: The Evolutionary Link Between Protists and Animals In the vast tree of life, few connections are as pivotal as the one between single-celled organisms and the complex, multicel...
Read Choanozoa: The Evolutionary Link Between Protists and AnimalsObazoa: The Evolutionary Link Between Animals, Fungi, and Protists In the vast and complex tree of life, the domain Eukaryota (organisms with complex cells containing a nucleus) is divide...
Read Obazoa: The Evolutionary Link Between Animals, Fungi, and ProtistsApomorphy and Synapomorphy in Phylogenetic Analysis In the study of evolutionary relationships, scientists use specific terminology to describe how traits change over millions of years. C...
Read Apomorphy and Synapomorphy in Phylogenetic AnalysisPlesiomorphy and Symplesiomorphy in Phylogenetic Analysis In the study of phylogenetics—the analysis of evolutionary relationships among biological species—scientists must distinguish bet...
Read Plesiomorphy and Symplesiomorphy in Phylogenetic AnalysisOpen Tree of Life: Mapping the Phylogenetic History of Species The Open Tree of Life is a comprehensive, collaborative online project dedicated to creating a complete phylogenetic tree—a ...
Read Open Tree of Life: Mapping the Phylogenetic History of SpeciesErnst Haeckel: The Artist and Naturalist of Evolutionary Theory Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel was a towering figure in 19th-century science, blending the precision of zoology with...
Read Ernst Haeckel: The Artist and Naturalist of Evolutionary TheoryNeomura: The Controversial Clade of Archaea and Eukaryota In the quest to map the history of life on Earth, scientists have long debated how the three primary domains—Bacteria, Archaea, a...
Read Neomura: The Controversial Clade of Archaea and EukaryotaThomas Cavalier-Smith and the Evolution of Biological Classification Thomas Cavalier-Smith (1942–2021) was a distinguished professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Oxford wh...
Read Thomas Cavalier-Smith and the Evolution of Biological ClassificationEukaryotes: The Complex Cells That Shape Life on Earth From the microscopic organisms drifting in a drop of pond water to the towering redwoods and the massive blue whale, eukaryotes repr...
Read Eukaryotes: The Complex Cells That Shape Life on EarthPhylogenetic Trees: Mapping the Evolutionary History of Life A phylogenetic tree, or phylogeny, is a graphical representation that illustrates the evolutionary history between a set of sp...
Read Phylogenetic Trees: Mapping the Evolutionary History of LifeJulian Huxley: The Architect of the Modern Synthesis and Global Humanism Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (1887–1975) was a towering figure of 20th-century science, blending the rigor of evolutio...
Read Julian Huxley: The Architect of the Modern Synthesis and Global HumanismModern Synthesis: The Unification of Darwinian Evolution and Mendelian Genetics The modern synthesis represents one of the most significant milestones in biological science. Emerging in t...
Read Modern Synthesis: The Unification of Darwinian Evolution and Mendelian GeneticsTree of Life: The Evolution of Biological Classification The tree of life, or universal tree of life, is a powerful metaphor, conceptual model, and research tool used by scientists to exp...
Read Tree of Life: The Evolution of Biological ClassificationCommon Descent and the Last Universal Common Ancestor In the study of evolutionary biology, common descent is the principle that different species share a common ancestor. This process oc...
Read Common Descent and the Last Universal Common AncestorVestiges of the Natural History of Creation: The Book That Prepared the World for Darwin Long before Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work on natural selection, a mysterious be...
Read Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation: The Book That Prepared the World for DarwinApomorphy and Synapomorphy in Phylogenetic Analysis In the study of evolutionary relationships, scientists use specific terminology to describe how traits change over time. At the heart o...
Read Apomorphy and Synapomorphy in Phylogenetic AnalysisSympatry and the Mechanisms of Speciation In the study of evolutionary biology, the spatial relationship between related species provides critical clues about how life diversifies. When t...
Read Sympatry and the Mechanisms of Speciation