Postdoc News

Given the substantial biological costs of sexual reproduction, why did it evolve? New research from the lab of Michael M. Desai offers a compelling answer — particularly in environments that change over time. The study, led by Ph.D. candidate Shreyas Pai...

Congratulations to Professor Stephanie Pierce and Postdoctoral Researcher Peter Bishop who are co-recipients of the Division of Earth Sciences-Life & Environments Through Time award from the National Science Foundation for the project titled, "Integrating...

For every two living vertebrates on Earth, one is a fish – 95% of which are ray-finned fishes such as salmon, tuna, goldfish, and trout. Ray-finned fishes comprise roughly 35,000 species and thrive in environments ranging from deep-sea trenches to alpine...

For more than 270 million years, trilobites were among the most successful and diverse creatures on Earth, with over 22,000 known species spanning the Paleozoic Era. Yet, despite their abundance in the fossil record and their presence on every continent...

Deep in the marine world lives an enigmatic creature that is challenging our understanding of early animal evolution. Known as the three-banded panther worm, Hofstenia miamia belongs to a mysterious group called acoels. While these worms might look like...

It had been a long day of teaching for Rudy Lerosey-Aubril . As a reward, he returned to cleaning an intriguing Cambrian arthropod fossil he had recently received for review. At first, the specimen showed all the expected characteristics of its time – yet...

For an oyster, creating an internal environment for calcification that forms its distinctive hard shell is essential. But a new study published in PNAS, has found that these bivalves may outsource the work, coordinating with microbes in a manner that may...

The recent issue of the journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, compiled studies that explore the issue's theme "Embracing variability in comparative physiology: why it matters and what to do with it." Yangfan Zhang, postdoctoral...

Those tiny “question marks” etched into ancient shells? They’re not random scratches—they’re the calling cards of a 480-million-year-old parasite! A new study published in iScience has revealed that a parasite still plaguing modern oysters today has been...

In the inky depths of the Central Pacific Ocean, nearly 2,400 meters below the surface, scientists have discovered a new species of deep-sea limpet clinging to a sunken log. During a 2023 expedition aboard the E/V Nautilus, scientists using the remotely...