All species on Earth, both living and extinct, are related. We know this because of a biological tool called the tree of life. This "tree" takes the form of a diagram that maps the relationships ...

Properly deciphering the branching pathways of evolution could unlock the history of every component of natural biology.

A tree of life based on genes from across the nuclear genome and containing nearly 60% of all angiosperm genera unveils the complex evolutionary history of flowering plants. This tree both ...

Scientists trace an ancient microbe, Asgard archaea, that gave rise to humans, animals, and plants more than 2 billion years ...

A new study unveils the most comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary history of flowering plants to date. The research analyzed 1.8 billion letters of genetic code from more than 9,500 species ...

Botanists have mapped the evolutionary relationships between flowering plants using genomic data from more than 9500 species. The newly compiled tree of life will help scientists piece together the ...

Almost every plant we eat has a flower, and flowering plants populate every corner of the planet. But many questions remain about how and when this vast group emerged throughout the history of life on ...

Why do you have five fingers? Why not ten, or twenty, or one? Why do so many animals have five fingers? Five seems to be the perfect number for most hands. Oddly, the first vertebrates to come onto ...

Jacqueline Nguyen receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Simon Ho receives funding from the Australian Research Council. The largest-ever study of bird genomes has produced a ...