London`s Natural History Museum opened its doors Friday on an eagerly-awaited exhibition on the life of British naturalist Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution.

PARIS, Sept 21, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study.

The findings, published Sunday in the British-based science journal Nature, upend the prevailing theory on the evolution of digits.

PARIS, Sept 21, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study.

The findings, published Sunday in the British-based science journal Nature, upend the prevailing theory on the evolution of digits.

PARIS, September 7, 2008 (AFP) - Humans have an inborn, intuitive grasp of numbers that varies sharply from one person to the next and is closely linked to advanced math skills, according to a study released Sunday.

PARIS, August 31, 2008 (AFP) - Among biological scientists, they are the true nomenklatura, a small and far-flung tribe dedicated to the coherent naming of all living things, past and present.

PARIS, August 27, 2008 (AFP) - Humans are selfish in earliest childhood but by the age of seven or eight are keen to share equally, a developmental change so sudden that it can only be explained, at least in part, by genes, according to a study released Wednesday.

PARIS, June 8, 2008 (AFP) - Relentless evolution towards more intelligent species may have been driven not just by progressively larger brains but by the increasingly complex way in which they were wired, reports a study released Sunday.

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists have long thought that walking is easier than climbing for primates -- explaining why we humans ended up on our feet all the time.

But researchers at two US universities have found that, at least for smaller primates like squirrel monkeys and lemurs, climbing is no more difficult and energy-consuming than walking.

LONDON, April 17, 2008 (AFP) - The original version of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was published online Thursday among a 'treasure trove' of the scientist's papers, photographs and other documents.

Some 20,000 items contained in around 90,000 images were published on the Internet, according to a spokesman for Cambridge University, the scholar's old academic home.

PARIS, April 16, 2008 (AFP) - Relentless commercial fishing can trigger rapid evolutionary changes when only smaller, younger fish are left behind, a study released Wednesday shows.

Moreover, those changes among fish populations -- a desperate bid to adapt -- may be difficult or impossible to reverse.

PARIS, March 26, 2008 (AFP) - An international team of scientists said on Wednesday the evolution of life on Earth had been braked for nearly two billion years because of oxygen deficiency and a lack of the heavy metal molybdenum in the oceans.

PARIS, Feb 20, 2008 (AFP) - Diving deep into the human gene pool, scientists in the United States have drawn one of the most detailed maps to date of our evolutionary past.

Their findings are detailed in two studies published Wednesday in the British journal Nature.

PARIS, Feb 13, 2008 (AFP) - A nearly perfect bat fossil unveiled Wednesday, the oldest ever found, has settled a long-simmering evolutionary debate: first came flight, and only then did bats develop sonar to track and trap their prey.

Most experts had thought it was the other way around, according to the study, published in the British journal Nature.

PARIS, Feb 6, 2008 (AFP) - Having a honeyed voice is not enough, for a woman also needs to give a man a clear message to seduce him, according to a study published on Wednesday.

British researchers asked 30 men to listen to recordings made by four women aged around 25 who said the phrase, 'I really like you.'

PARIS, Feb 4, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists have found more than 500 genes that account for variations across human populations including skin color, height, and vulnerability to disease, according to a study released Sunday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 4, 2008 (AFP) - A day after ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee finished first in the opening round to choose a Republican candidate for the White House, scientists warned Americans against electing a leader who doubts evolution.

WASHINGTON, Jan 4, 2008 (AFP) - A day after ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee finished first in the opening round to choose a Republican candidate for the White House, scientists warned Americans against electing a leader who doubts evolution.

CHICAGO, Nov 12, 2007 (AFP) - Archaeologists have discovered the ancient jawbone of what appears to be a new species of ape that was very close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans, a study released Monday said.

PARIS, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Scientists have uncovered what might be called the law of language evolution: the more a word is used, the less likely it is to change over time.

Like genes, words undergo ruthless survival-of-the-fittest pressure and those which are less central to daily life are subject to mutation, according to their study.

Their research applies mathematical precision to four very different Indo-European languages -- but if it holds for other languages as well, it would be a milestone in understanding one of humanity's defining attributes.

PARIS, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - A bee trapped by a glob of sap inside a come-hither orchid up to 20 million years ago has rewritten the evolutionary tale of a flower with the most fanatical following of any plant in the world.

In a study published Wednesday, biologists say the most recent common ancestor to all modern-day orchids lived in the twilight of the dinosaurs, in the Late Cretaceous period some 80 million years ago.

PARIS, Aug 26, 2007 (AFP) - Scientists in France and Italy have deciphered the complete genetic code for the plant producing wine grapes, according to a study published Sunday.

While the findings will do nothing to enhance the mystique of winemaking, they could pave the way for gene-based manipulations to boost flavour and improve resistance against disease.

PARIS, Aug 22, 2007 (AFP) - Ten million-year-old fossils discovered in Ethiopia show that humans and apes probably split six or seven million years earlier than widely thought, according to landmark study released Wednesday.

The handful of teeth from the earliest direct ancestors of modern gorillas ever found -- one canine and eight molars -- also leave virtually no doubt, the study's authors and experts said, that both humans and modern apes did indeed originate from Africa.

PARIS, Aug 13, 2007 (AFP) - Forget jutting jaws, pheromones or hypnotic stares. What has made men sexy since they lived in caves could well be a foreshortened face, according to a new study.

Theories abound as to why humans are attracted to each other, and on the role facial features might have played in the human evolutionary saga.