Hundreds of fossils uncovered in southern China's province of Yunnan reveal that at least some of the life-forms scientists had thought arose in the Cambrian period were alive and thriving millions of years earlier, in an era known as the Ediacaran period.
In this tree of life, The Straits Times examines each Pokemon character's closest proxies in the real world, uncovering the scientific concepts hidden in their designs. Beyond the original species, we delve into creatures from different dimensions and eras that were introduced in later versions of the game.
We think that in this early deuterostome, the median eye contained both ciliary and rhabdomeric cells. As a result, both cellular lineages were incorporated into a single, ancient, cyclopean eye, which later evolved into the vertebrate eyes.
Wooden objects carrying the marks of carving and use could be the oldest wooden tools ever found. Researchers dated the artefacts, found in what is now Greece, to 430,000 years ago - and suggest they might have been made by early Neanderthals or their ancestors, Homo heidelbergensis. A separate study describes 480,000-old flint-knapping tools made from antler and elephant bone, from what is now the United Kingdom.
Human breasts sit at an elevated temperature, protecting a newborn from hypothermia. What's more, the size and shape of the breast allows for broad contact surface - enhancing the heat transfer from mother to child. This could improve a newborn's chances of survival and provide an evolutionarily grounded explanation for the development of external breasts in humans.
Eukaryotes drastically differ from archaea and bacteria (collectively, prokaryotes) by the complex organization of eukaryotic cells. The signature features of this organizational complexity include the eponymous nucleus, the endomembrane system, the elaborate cytoskeleton and the energy-converting mitochondrion, which evolved from an alphaproteobacterial endosymbiont9. Thus, the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) probably already possessed mitochondria along with the other signatures of the eukaryotic cellular organization.
The lava heron also has a much thicker bill than other closely related herons - an adaptation linked to feeding among sharp volcanic rocks and hard-shelled prey. "What we learned was something that hadn't been reported before," Mendales said. The discovery underscores how much remains unknown, even in iconic places like the Galápagos, said John Dumbacher, the Academy's curator of birds and mammals and Mendales' thesis adviser.
