These days i am mostly into understanding the various aspects of evo devo and for this i am trying to read loads of articles.Things will be fine for me till i encounter a phylogenetic tree ,which is not an easy thing to understand if you are new to this field.No way you can bypass phylogenetic trees in the field of evolution as it forms the heart of the subject.Initially it was very torturous to read this confusing trees but things slowly getting better with discussion (with my friends) and reading …

Homology mean any similarity between characters that is due to their shared ancestry.The term homologs looks simple theoretically but it’s important to get the various terms clear as it is one of the most important concept in biology.
Homologous features (”character”)–whether they be genes, mechanisms or morphologies–share an evolutionary history. That is,homologs share a character, from which they were derived, in an ancestor.The way the character looks (its “state”) is “primitive” if it looks like the ancestral character, and “derived” if it has changed from the ancestral state.
Orthologs and paralogs …

First saw this article on A blog around the clock and found it very interesting and thought of sharing the same on my blog.Recently PLOS ONE has published an article on Invivo restoration of DNA function from an extinct genome.DNA from Tasmanian wolf which was ethanol-fixed and stored for over 100 years in Museum was used .

How does variation in genes generate the beautiful diversity of animal body shapes that fill the world? UCSD Biologist William McGinnis explains that all animals, whether fish, fowl, or fly, share similar architectural control genes called Homeobox genes. The discovery and study of these genes has led to an understanding of how subtle changes in Homeobox genes can lead to changes in animal form during evolution. Series: “Evolution Matters”
This is nice lecture by the person who discovered Homeobox in fruit fly,where is talks about evolution and embryos.Talks about Darwin,Drosophila’s contribution …

Different organisms are actually variations of same theme.Evolution is not playing with bodies but the machinery which makes bodies i.e, Genes.The Homeotic genes encode transcription factors which play very pivotal role in axial pattering in organisms.Hox genes are conserved throughout evolution. Commonality of form among animals was finally understood ,all organisms use same set of genes to build their bodies and these genes are inherited from a common ancestors lived long ago.

About Video:
Neil Shubin and Sean Carroll discuss homeobox genes, a set of genes that produce basic body parts in …

Nice pictures of invertebrates with some very soothing Music!!!!

What is the need to classify organisms present around us??? “There are an estimated 1.5 – 1.7 million named species on earth (E. O. Wilson, 2001). Of these, invertebrates account for >99%. In reality there may be 13 620 000 species (or more) in total according to the Global Biodiversity Assessment”.
1) To give specific names to the organisms.
2)To identify the different species and
3) For finding the evolutionary relationships between the organisms,For these reasons Classification of organisms becomes extremely vital.
Classification is not something recent,evidence from the days of Aristotle is available …