Congratulations to Meghan Blumstein (N. Michele Holbrook Lab), she has successfully defended her PhD and is now officially Dr. Blumstein!

A major transition in animal evolution is the origin of bilateral symmetry, which coincided with the evolution of organized nervous systems. Animals with bilateral symmetry are known to prominently feature a complex brain with many different neural cell types located near the front of the animal's head. To understand the appearance of the brain and its diverse neurons studies of the nervous system in animals that diverged early from their ancestor lineage are needed.

In a study...

Read more about Neural Architecture and Regeneration in Three-Banded Panther Worm

Andrew Berry, Lecturer on Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and highly admired Integrated Biology Undergraduate Advisor sat down with Current Biology for a Q&A.  Read more about An Interview with Andrew Berry

When COVID-19 sent students home and halted lab research, Scott Edwards, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of cycling from the Atlantic to Pacific. Two weeks before his departure on June 6, nationwide protests broke out over the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. On the same day a video of a racist encounter in Central Park involving a Black birder and white woman went viral. As a result of that incident, a group of Black birders and naturalists launched...

Read more about Scott Edwards fulfills a lifelong dream while also raising awareness

Some of the most fundamental questions in evolution remain unanswered, such as when and how extremely diverse groups of animals – for example reptiles – first evolved. For 75 years, adaptive radiations – the relatively fast evolution of many species from a single common ancestor – have been considered as the major cause of biological diversity, including the origins of major body plans (structural and developmental characteristics that identify a group of animals) and new lineages. However, past research examining these rapid rates of evolution was largely constrained by the methods...

Read more about Did Adaptive Radiations Shape Reptiles?