Humanity's forgotten return to Africa revealed in DNA (NewScientist)

Call it humanity's unexpected U-turn. One of the biggest events in the history of our species is the exodus out of Africa some 65,000 years ago, the start of Homo sapiens' long march across the world. Now a study of southern African genes shows that, unexpectedly, another migration took western Eurasian DNA back to the very southern tip of the continent 3000 years ago.

According to conventional thinking, the Khoisan tribes of southern Africa, have lived in near-isolation from the rest of humanity for thousands of years. In fact, the study shows that some of their DNA matches most closely people from modern-day southern Europe, including Spain and Italy. [Read Full Article]

Waterfall-climbing fish performs evolutionary feat (NSF)

Small Hawaiian goby fish species could provide big clues about adaptation and evolution.

The species of goby fish, Sicyopterus stimpsoni, also known as the "inching climber," thrives in the waters off Hawaii, and the amazing physical feat it must perform to survive is no fish tale! To reach the safe haven of its freshwater spawning area, this goby must scale a waterfall, or at least the rock behind it, using suction cups on its body. [Read Full Article]

Neanderthals gave us disease genes (BBC News)

Gene types that influence disease in people today were picked up through interbreeding with Neanderthals, a major study in Nature journal suggests.

They passed on variants involved in type 2 diabetes, Crohn's disease and - curiously - smoking addiction.

Genome studies reveal that our species (Homo sapiens) mated with Neanderthals after leaving Africa.

But it was previously unclear what this Neanderthal DNA did and whether there were any implications for human health. [Read Full Article]

A Comeback for Lamarckian Evolution? (MIT Technology Review)

The effects of an animal’s environment during adolescence can be passed down to future offspring, according to two new studies. If applicable to humans, the research, done on rodents, suggests that the impact of both childhood education and early abuse could span generations. The findings provide support for a 200-year-old theory of evolution that has been largely dismissed: Lamarckian evolution, which states that acquired characteristics can be passed on to offspring. [Read Full Article]

A Missing Genetic Link in Human Evolution (Quanta Magazine)

About 8 million to 12 million years ago, the ancestor of great apes, including humans, underwent a dramatic genetic change. Small pieces of DNA replicated and spread across their resident chromosomes like dandelions across a lawn. But as these “dandelion seeds” dispersed, they carried some grass and daisy seeds — additional segments of DNA — along for the ride. This unusual pattern, repeated in different parts of the genome, is found only in great apes — bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and humans. [Read Full Article]

Oldest Hominin DNA Ever Sequenced (The Scientist)

Sima de los Huesos, a cave in northern Spain, contains one of the largest collections of hominin fossils ever discovered. Now, this so-called “pit of bones” has also yielded the oldest hominin DNA ever sequenced.

Using a thigh bone from the cave, Matthias Meyer from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has sequenced the almost complete mitochondrial genome of one of Sima de los Huesos’ inhabitants, who likely lived around 400,000 years ago. That is at least four times older than the previous record-holder—a small 100,000-year-old stretch of Neanderthal DNA. [Read Full Article]

When Harmless Bacteria Go Bad (Scientific American)

Bacteria are all around —and inside—us. Some are harmless, some are beneficial and some, of course, cause disease. Others, such as the common bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, defy categorization. They are turncoats, with the ability to suddenly switch from good to bad. [Read Full Article]

New proto-mammal fossil sheds light on evolution of earliest mammals (by UCM Medicine)

August 7, 2013

A newly discovered fossil reveals the evolutionary adaptations of a 165-million-year-old proto-mammal, providing evidence that traits such as hair and fur originated well before the rise of the first true mammals. The biological features of this ancient mammalian relative, named Megaconus mammaliaformis, ... [Read Full Article]