God designed a domain of prokaryotes called Archaea that thrive in harsh and extreme environments. In 1969, two microbiologists, Thomas Brock and Hudson Freeze, discovered a heat-resistant bacterium in a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. This thermophile was named Thermus aquaticus. From this bacterium, biochemist Alice Chien and others isolated a DNA polymerase called Taq polymerase (Taq) that was later used in polymer... More...
Where did spiders (arachnids) come from? What was their origin? Clearly, the fossil record shows spiders have always been spiders1,2 along with other chelicerates (a subphylum of the arthropods).
The alleged evolution of the chelicerates (i.e., Arachnida) has recently become complex and problematic. According to Sharma and Gavish-Regev writing in the Annual Review of Entomology, the “longstanding hypothese... More...