News

How predictable is evolution? The answer has long been debated by biologists grappling with the extent to which history affects the repeatability of evolution. A review published in Science explores the complexity of evolution’s predictability in extraordinary detail. 

Richard Lenski was inducted into the American Philosophical Society — the oldest "learned society" in the United States — on Nov. 9, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Wissam Jawad recounts tales and makes connections about his experiences at biological field stations around the world.

Paige Barne's summer internship at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research reaffirmed her commitment to animal behavior research.

Arend Hintze reflects on how useful biological concepts, such as evolution, are for engineering problems in an article he wrote for The Conversation. His research uses evolution as an approach to developing artificial intelligence. 

Amphibian biologists watched in horror in 2004 as the frogs of El Copé, Panama, began dying by the thousands because of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a deadly fungus more commonly known as chytrid. A new study suggests that, within a decade, the species remaining in El Copé developed the ability to coexist with chytrid fungus. 

Maris Wright's summer at the Florida Aquarium was an experience that she will never be able to forget. As one of the first interns for the Marine Operations department at the aquarium, she was excited to see what they had planned for me throughout the summer and to really get her feet wet.

Elena Litchman is leading a three-year, $993,000 project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) in collaboration with faculty at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). The project aims to investigate and to predict intraspecific trait variation in phytoplankton. 

An inside look into why students should spend a summer at KBS.

Developing cutting-edge statistical tools that can handle these massive new datasets is a piece of the research puzzle, and new research by Gideon Bradburd and colleagues has just added a new tool for the modern genomic toolbox. 

In summer 2018, Zoology major Chelsea Bandy spent a month in Thailand and Australia helping animals and learning hands-on what it’s like to be a veterinarian through the Loop Abroad Program.

With the help of a graduate student, Lauren designed a research study to be conducted in the Pantanal region of Brazil, but she lacked the funds to finance the project. Determined to capture wildlife on camera traps and use this data to define a sustainability plan, she applied for numerous scholarships. She was awarded Integrative Biology's Dr. Marvin Hensley Endowed Scholarship to make her dream a reality.

At the August MSU Board of Trustee meeting, Ingo Braasch explained what fish can tell us about our evolution, development, and diseases.

Science is often a series of failures that teach us how to succeed. After a first field season riddled with messes, graduate student Sean Griffin is making a beeline toward his research on pollinators in his second year of field work.

Sarah Evans is a co-author of a new study which suggests that fog can transfer microbes into new environments.

Elena Litchman and Christopher Klausmeier are the recipients of a two year, $360,000 NASA Astrobiology/Exobiology grant to fund research on modeling the evolutionary origin of diverse microbial metabolisms.

Deforestation remains the biggest threat to animals that call the rain forest “home.” However, even measured, sensible development projects can have unforeseen effects because there’s no model to follow. Now, thanks to new research published in Ecological Applications, there’s a guide to help land-use development and efforts to conserve amphibians, which are rapidly declining worldwide.

Scientists, including Nick Haddad, are working to save several species of butterflies from the brink of extinction.