In a study in the March 15 issue of Science Magazine, Mansi Srivastava and lab members Andrew Gehrke, Emily Neverett, Yi-Jyun Luo, Lorenzo Ricci (Postdocs) and Ryan Hulett (PhD student) shed light on how some animals have the amazing ability to regenerate and uncovered a number of DNA switches that appear to control genes for whole-body regeneration.

The team used three-banded panther worms to test the process and discovered...

How the centimeter-sized termite is able to build meter-sized structures all over the world has long puzzled scientists. In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Prof. Mahadevan and PhD student, Alexander Heyde, developed a simple model that shows how differences in the environment lead to the distinct morphologies of termite mounds in Asia, Australia,...

Set in the Nebraska's Sand Hills, an on-going study led by Rowan Barrett (McGill University, former Postdoc, Hoekstra Lab) and Hopi Hoekstra shows evolution in real time. Hundreds of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) were released into massive, custom-built outdoor enclosures to track how light- and dark-colored mice survived in light- and dark-colored habitats.

The results, published in Science, reveals real-time...

The pancrustaceans are the most diverse animal group to ever exist, and include familiar kinds of arthropods such as crustaceans (e.g. shrimp, crabs, lobsters) and six-legged insects. A new study by Prof. Javier Ortega-Hernández and Joanna Wolfe (Research Associate, Ortega-Hernández Lab), in collaboration with colleagues at Yunnan University in Kunming, illuminate details on the evolution of these successful invertebrates. The findings, published in the...