A fossil analysis suggests that the yunnanozoan, a wormlike fish that flourished around 520 million years ago, sported structures that were the precursors of the head and jaws of modern vertebrates.
Our perception of quantity, separate from counting or estimation of magnitude more generally, is foundational to human cognition, according to some neuroscientists.
The field is given a boost by a widening of focus at the institutes as well as a report praising a major initiative. During the brief earthly tenure of the species Homo sapiens, the human genome seems to have accumulated just the right amount of variation to suit the purposes of geneticists. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), the DNA bases that vary systematically between subpopulations, are common enough to serve usefully as chromosomal markers but not so common as to make genetic analys
Brianna Chrisman and Jordan Eizenga | Sep 1, 2022 | 10+ min read
Thirty years out from the start of the Human Genome Project, researchers have finally finished sequencing the full 3 billion bases of a person’s genetic code. But even a complete reference genome has its shortcomings.
The Scientist and Jerome Siegel | Mar 1, 2016 | 10+ min read
Once believed to be unique to birds and mammals, sleep is found across the metazoan kingdom. Some animals, it seems, can’t live without it, though no one knows exactly why.