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Hot Topic
Origins
Origin & Evolution of Life
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| Worms in the Mist |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
11/12/03 |
| The wriggling tracks of worm-like creatures can be found in rocks dating back nearly 600 million years ago. Such 'trace' fossils are fairly common in Cambrian rocks, but similar markings also have been found in much older rocks that formed long before multi-cellular mobile animals were supposed to have existed. |
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| Preemies from the Precambrian |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
11/10/03 |
| Scientists are using a miniaturized version of the medical CT scanner to look for clues to evolution in the fossilized embryos of some of Earth's earliest animals. |
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| Biology's Theme Park: RNA World |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
08/30/03 |
| When a laboratory recipe for life starts to look daunting, scientists have retreated to a test-tube for what they term 're-evolving evolution'. Their model is one of the template molecules for life, the counterpart to DNA itself, called RNA, which replicates a pattern for cell reproduction. |
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| Life from the Heavens? |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
08/19/03 |
| The scientific community has been impressed with the robustness of environments that can support life, ranging from Antarctic lakes to salt mines to nuclear reactors. But conventional wisdom has presumed that life traveling to Earth on a fiery meteor--if possible--would meet a quick sterilizing death. |
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| Spying on Biodiversity |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
08/15/03 |
| Monitoring of species which may have natural habitats in remote areas is no easy task. Using internet cameras, a group of Alaska biologists can keep warm, while watching the great outdoors. |
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| Synchronizing Molecular Clocks |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
06/18/03 |
| The frequency of changes in a species' genetic code acts like a kind of molecular clock, which can trace the branches of a family tree back to the original root. Evolutionary biologists are using molecular clocks to time how fast a species may be changing, and even when it might separate from its ancestral roots. |
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| Shining Light on Life's Origin |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
06/11/03 |
| When ultraviolet radiation was more intense than today, and the early Earth had a mix of nitrogen-rich molecules, how did this primordial soup get cooked? And how did it not burn? Scientists are asking the question: How did the fittest biomolecules survive, before life itself began? |
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| Primordial Recipe: Spark and Stir |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
05/14/03 |
| No single experiment, according to Carl Sagan, has done to convince scientists that life is 'likely abundant in cosmos' than work fifty years ago by then graduate student, Stanley Miller. This week celebrates his milestone publication, and Astrobiology Magazine interviewed him about his work and reflections today. |
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| Redundant Evolution |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
04/28/03 |
| Gene duplication in plants has led to new species, but scientist haven't known why and when such "carbon copies" of genes come to exist. A University of Georgia study published in the journal Nature tries to uncover why this divergence happens. |
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| Beaming a Lifeform Musically |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
04/27/03 |
| This week's celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the DNA double-helix highlights the rapid advances in genetic sequencing. These breakthroughs have allowed comparisons previously unavailable to those scientists who try to understand how such a complicated structure as DNA might have evolved. |
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