evolution – Behind The Black

Life found that hasn’t changed in 2 billion years

February 3, 2015 6:00 pm Robert Zimmerman

Scientists have discovered a micro-organism that has not evolved in more than 2 billion years.

Schopf and his colleagues used a variety of spectroscopic imaging techniques to study sulfur bacteria fossils embedded in deep sea rocks of varying ages. Analysis of the microorganisms from 1.8 billion-year-old rocks from Western Australia and 2.3 billion-year-old rocks collect off the coast of Chile showed that ancient sulfur bacteria looks the exact same now as it has for more than two billion years.

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The tree that hitched a ride for 11,000 miles.

June 18, 2014 8:41 am Robert Zimmerman

The tree that hitched a ride for 11,000 miles.

This is a fascinating science story that illustrates the element of randomness and chaos in all things, despite the efforts of humans to assign logic and organization to existence.

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Why the crickets on the Hawaiian islands stopped singing twenty years ago.

June 5, 2014 9:24 am Robert Zimmerman

Why the crickets on the Hawaiian islands stopped singing twenty years ago.

Believe it or not, they actually evolved.

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A newly discovered fossil of a very early dinosaur strongly suggests that all dinosaurs had some form of plumage.

July 2, 2012 3:42 pm Robert Zimmerman

A newly discovered fossil of a very early dinosaur strongly suggests that all dinosaurs had some form of plumage.

A microscopic algae-eater that lives in a Norway lake has now been identified as one of the Earth’s oldest living organisms.

April 30, 2012 8:59 am Robert Zimmerman

A microscopic algae-eater that lives in a Norway lake has now been identified as one of the Earth’s oldest living organisms.

The elusive, single-cell creature evolved about a billion years ago and did not fit in any of the known categories of living organisms – it was not an animal, plant, parasite, fungus or alga, they say.

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Rather than gliding, the first flying bats used their wings to flutter down on their prey

November 5, 2011 6:04 pm Robert Zimmerman

Rather than learning to fly by gliding, a new theory proposes that the first flying bats learned how to fly by fluttering down on their prey.

How blind cave fish find food

September 15, 2010 9:10 am Robert Zimmerman

How blind cave fish find food. Key quote:

“Vibration Attraction Behavior” (or VAB) is the ability of fish to swim toward the source of a water disturbance in darkness. Postdoctoral associate Masato Yoshizawa measured this behavioral response in both wild caught and laboratory raised cave and surface-dwelling fish using a vibrating rod at different frequencies as a stimulus. Most cavefish displayed VAB and would swim toward the vibrating rod and poke at it, while few surface fish did.