historical memory or collective memory, in studies on cultural history and history of ideas, is often neglected. it is sufficient, for example, look at the names and titles to learn of the common view of a nation. this is true about alexander’s image in our culture. in our culture and some others, alexander is a myth and sometimes a unique hero. shahnameh can demonstrate this historical memory ...

The mechanisms shaping island biotas are not yet well understood mostly because of a lack of studies comparing eco-evolutionary fingerprints over entire taxonomic groups. Here, we linked community structure (richness, frequency and nestedness) and genetic differentiation (based on mitochondrial DNA) in order to compare insular butterfly communities occurring over a key intercontinental area in ...

Studies on the evolutionary history of ascomycetes in terms of time scale will help to understand historical patterns that shape their biodiversity. Until now most of dating studies of ascomycetes have focused on major events in fungal evolution but not on divergence events within smaller groups of fungi e.g. within Sordariomycetes. We used molecular dating to estimate the time of separation of...

Evolution of H1N1 influenza A outbreaks of the past 100 years is interesting and significantly complex and details of H1N1 genetic drift remains unknown. Here we investigated the clinical characteristics and immune cross-reactivity of significant historical H1N1 strains. We infected ferrets with H1N1 strains from 1943, 1947, 1977, 1986, 1999, and 2009 and showed each produced a unique clinical ...

Mating signals act as behavioral barriers to gene flow in many animal taxa, yet little is known about how signal evolution within populations contributes to the formation of these barriers. Although variation in mating signals among populations is known to affect mating behavior, there is no direct evidence that the evolution of mating signals changes signal effectiveness within a natural popul...

Urbanisation is a fundamental phenomenon whose quantitative characterisation is still inadequate. We report here the empirical analysis of a unique data set regarding almost 200 years of evolution of the road network in a large area located north of Milan (Italy). We find that urbanisation is characterised by the homogenisation of cell shapes, and by the stability throughout time of high-centra...

When and where did modern humans evolve? How did our ancestors spread over the world? Traditionally, answers to questions such as these have been sought in historical, archaeological, and fossil records. However, increasingly genetic data provide information about the evolution of our species. In this review, we focus on the comparison of the variation in the human gene pool to that of our clos...

This Chapter introduces the major themes of this book. In many ways, Mercury is an extreme planet, and thus it provides a unique benchmark for testing our theories about the origin and evolution of other (particularly terrestrial) planets. Emphasis is given to synthesizing and critiqueing the book's chapters on the planet's origin, its metal-rich composition, its thermal and geophysical evoluti...