Vertebrate evolution was accompanied by two rounds of whole genome duplication followed by functional divergence in terms of regulatory circuits and gene expression patterns. As a basal and ...

Those of you who took high school biology may remember the lancelet, also known as the amphioxus. Its simplified body plan is notable for containing a number of features that it shares in common with ...

An ancient sea creature, discovered off the coast of Scotland in 2011, has shed new light on how evolution formed the modern brain. An international team involving researchers at the University of St ...

The findings suggest that the appearance of the vertebrate head skeleton ‘did not depend on evolution of a new skeletal tissue, as is commonly thought, but on the spread of this tissue throughout the ...

The MyD88-independent pathway, one of the two crucial TLR signaling routes, is thought to be a vertebrate innovation. However, a novel Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) adaptor, designated bbtTICAM, ...

Researchers have made the first detailed map of the regions into which the brain of one of the most closely-related organisms to the vertebrates is divided and which could give us an idea of what our ...