A beautiful Tree of life poster @ Tellapallet would be a wonderful gift for anyone this Christmas. If you want a hardcopy of this poster, you can either (1) download the PDF file here for free and take it to a print shop  and get it printed as a large poster (it prints 24″ x 48″), or (2)  buy it online at Zazzle.com (click here to jump to the poster) (245)

For the benefit of new readers of Hoxful Monsters, here is the list of top Hox and evo devo posts published in the blog in last few years:
1)This blog post talks about Hox genes in Cindarians and was published in Hoxful Monsters blog in 2008.
Title of the post is : Hox genes in Cnidarians : The story of Nematostella and Eleutheria and basically talks about two article from PLOS ONE journalin year 2007.
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One general question children and non science people tend to ask is why chimpanzees still remained as chimpanzees even after so many years. (161)

A new study led by Max Telford completely shook the animal Tree of life and also mark the birth of a new phyla termed “Xenacoelomorpha”.
Xenoturbella and Acoelomorpha are marine worms with highly debated ancestry. Both were originally associated with the flatworms (Platyhelminthes), but molecular data have revised their phylogenetic positions, generally linking xenoturbella to the deuterostomes leaving Acoelomorpha or Acoels as the most basally branching bilaterian group. (471)

Charles Darwin – The Tree of Life @ Yahoo! Video
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The diversity among various life forms on our planet is immense and one reason for their flourishing could be fusion of two prokaryotes, claims a latest report by James A. Lake. This hypothesis which provides new insights into prokaryotes and the evolution of life, was published in latest issue of journal Nature.
The prokaryotes are a group of organisms that lack a cell nucleus , or any other membrane-bound organelles. They differ from the eukaryotes, which have a well defined membrane bound nucleus containing the genetic material DNA. In Prokaryotes ,DNA …

Tunicates are closest living relatives of vertebrates
One of Charles Darwin’s most revolutionary idea was that all living things are related to one another (to different extents) through common decent (share common ancestors),connected to each other like branches of a huge “Tree of life”.
So what can we expect at the root of this giant tree?
At the base of the tree lies a 3.8 billions year old ancestor ,which gave rise to all living forms present on earth today.Thus making us all belong to one huge family and so by understanding the …