Rui Diogo

Howard University | HU · Department of Anatomy

It has been more than 30 years since the publication of the new head hypothesis, which proposed that the vertebrate head is an evolutionary novelty resulting from the emergence of neural crest and cranial placodes. Neural crest generates the skull and associated connective tissues, whereas placodes produce sensory organs. However, neither crest nor...

This book proposes a new way to think about evolution. The author carefully brings together evidence from diverse fields of science. In the process, he bridges the gaps between many different--and usually seen as conflicting--ideas to present one integrative theory named ONCE, which stands for Organic Nonoptimal Constrained Evolution. The author ar...

We provide the first detailed ontogenetic analysis of human limb muscles using whole-mount immunostaining. We compare our observations with the few earlier studies that have focused on the development of these muscles, and with data available on limb evolution, variations and pathologies. Our study confirms the transient presence of several atavist...

Whatever are your beliefs, background, education, political views or interests, one thing is sure: this book will engage you, teach you something new, and more importantly make you to re-think deeply about critical aspects of your daily-life, including sex, love, food, physical activities, diseases, work and stress, and how you see and deal with ot...

Most textbooks and atlases of human anatomy chronicle only a few cases of muscle variations in the normal human population, or of muscle anomalies within congenital malformations. Consequently, there is a misconception of what is considered normal human anatomy and what that looks like. Each person within the normal population has at least a few mu...

About this Research Topic The fish to tetrapod transition transformed the tetrapod body plan, eventually allowing tetrapods to move, eat, breathe, and reproduce on land. Reconstruction of soft tissues in early tetrapods and their relatives has the potential to solve controversies about the behavior and ecology of the earliest terrestrial vertebrat...

Thanks to new methods of modeling and analysis, we are discovering much more about movement, sensation, and feeding in animals that span the tetrapod water-land transition and the origin of amniotes. As investigations of function in extinct animals become more complex and rigorous, the need to take soft tissues into account becomes more pressing. F...

Limited research on the gross anatomy of the blood vessels has been conducted on hylobatids, or lesser apes, so far. Here, we present a detailed study of the arteries of siamangs (Symphalangus) and compare our findings with data compiled from our previous studies as well as from the literature about other hylobatids, greater apes, and humans. In pa...

Based at a Howard University, the Visible Ape Project (www.visibleapeproject.com) aims to provide free, publicly accessible anatomical educational resources suitable for classrooms from K-12 and beyond. It is designed to comprehensively illustrate anatomy and anatomical variation within and between extant ape species. It contains photographs, MRI,...

Human evolution and sexuality

No papers have described, so far, the muscular anomalies present in human fetuses with scoliosis. This paper provides a detailed report along with images on the musculoskeletal structures of a fetus with scoliosis, focusing in particular on the musculature of the posterior thoracic region. The dissections reveal several anomalies in different muscl...

Background The purpose of this study was to characterize the morphology of the fibularis tertius (FT) in human fetuses, and to provide a classification based on its modes of origin in human fetuses. Methods The material comprised 100extremities from 50 spontaneously aborted human fetuses (19 male, 31 female, 100 lowerlimbs in total), aged 18- 38 w...

Almost any person has made questions about what is moral and what is immoral, and numerous philosophers and literally thousands of publications have focused on this topic. The aim of this chapter is not to provide a comprehensive or extensive review on the history of these questions and on complex issues such as the links between morality, conseque...

Among the many works that discuss the links between the notion of “savages,” the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers, “civilization” and inequality, Kelly’s 2013 book The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers is probably the one that provides the most clear, succinct, empirically based, and unbiased account on both the myths and facts about the changes that norma...

Numerous books have already been written on racism. Here, I will provide a novel way to understand the deeper basis of racism by emphasizing how teleology, and in particular the notion of a “chain of being” that is profoundly related to our quest to understand humankind—including its “subgroups,” or imaginary “races”—and its place in nature, is pro...

Many of the narratives that human beings have a propensity to create and believe tend to include idealization of others—be it Gods, saints, or just people such as loved ones, politicians, scientists, or actors. As noted in Tallis’s The Incurable Romantic, idealization is a very common psychological phenomenon: “it simplifies the word in order to re...

We can now discuss topics directly related to the quest for a cosmic meaning/purpose of life, which has been a constant trend in humans since times immemorial, as attested by the fact that the oldest written epic tale—the fascinating Epic of Gilgamesh (Fig. 2.1), composed earlier than c. 2150 bc—specifically deals with Gilgamesh’s—“the great king o...

In Peterson’s 2001 excellent book Being Human—ETHICS, Environment, and Our Place in the World she describes two main opposing “modern” positions concerning the “nature versus nurture” debate: the constructionist view of authors such as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz and the naturalistic view of scholars such as the sociobiologist Edward Wilson....

Shermer’s 2011 The Believing Brain provides several illustrative examples of how teleology, and in particular our tendency to try to look for a meaning and for meaningful patterns even when the data is actually meaningless. This chapter will thus include some excerpts from that book, particularly concerning how such tendency affects our daily life....

As explained in Diane Ackerman’s 1994 book Natural History of Love, in most “post-Neolithic” (agricultural) societies, there is a clear link between the notion of romantic love and teleological narratives, including those about a cosmic purpose of life and the related concept of “meant to be.” She provides several examples of this, from art in anci...

Background: Squamate reptiles (lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians) exhibit incredible diversity in their locomotion, behavior, morphology and ecological breadth. Although they often are used as models of locomotor diversity, surprisingly little attention has been given to muscle development in squamate reptiles. In fact, the most detailed examination...

Introduction The morphological variability of the fibularis longus tendon (FLT) in adults is well understood. However, no comprehensive classification exists in human fetuses. The goal of this study was to prepare the first comprehensive classification of the fibularis longus tendon based on its insertion in human fetuses. Material and Methods For...

Since the early 1900s, researchers have attempted to unravel the origin and evolution of tetrapod limb muscles using a combination of comparative anatomy, phylogeny, and development. The methods for reconstructing soft tissues in extinct animals have been refined over time as our ability to determine muscle homology and phylogenetic relationships b...

Introduction: The plantaris muscle (PM) is a small, fusiform muscle located between the gastrocnemius muscle (GM) and soleus muscle (SM). PM supports movements of the knee and ankle. This muscle presents a great variability, and also has a high clinical significance. Nevertheless, data concerns morphology and morphometry of the origin of PM in huma...

Postdoc position OPEN in one of the strong evolutionary labs, in Washington DC, for OUT-OF-THE-BOX, CURIOUS, researchers

Introduction The plantaris muscle (PM) is a small, fusiform muscle located between the gastrocnemius muscle (GM) and soleus muscle (SM). PM supports movements of the knee and ankle. This muscle presents a great variability, and also has a high clinical significance. Nevertheless, data concerns morphology and morphometry of the origin of PM in human...

The Visible Ape Project (VAP) is a free online platform providing unprecedented access to a suite of resources designed to comprehensively illustrate and educate about the anatomy of our closest relatives, the apes. It contains photographs, magnetic resonance images, and computed tomography scans, as well as three-dimensional models that can be man...

Background: In adults, the fibularis tertius (FT) demonstrates great morphological variation. The present study classifies the types of FT insertion in human fetuses and compares their prevalence to the prevailing classification among adults. Materials and methods: Fifty spontaneously-aborted human fetuses (19 male, 31 female, 100 upper limbs in to...

The SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic is not the first pandemic we have suffered, and it will surely not be the last. Here, we review some concepts to better understand this and future pandemics. We analyze some historical events, the biology of viruses, the appearance of emerging diseases. We take a look at both the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the COVID-19...

Flip through scientific textbooks illustrating ideas about human evolution or visit any number of museums of natural history and you will notice an abundance of reconstructions attempting to depict the appearance of ancient hominins. Spend some time comparing reconstructions of the same specimen and notice an obvious fact: hominin reconstructions v...

Animal body parts evolve with variable degrees of integration that nonetheless yield functional adult phenotypes: but, how? The analysis of modularity with Anatomical Network Analysis (AnNA) is used to quantitatively determine phenotypic modules based on the physical connection among anatomical elements, an approach that is valuable to understand d...

One of the most intriguing questions in vertebrate evolution is how tetrapods gained the ability to walk on land. Although many hypotheses have been proposed, few have been rigorously tested using the fossil record. Here, we build three-dimensional musculoskeletal models of the pectoral appendage in Eusthenopteron, Acanthostega, and Pederpes and qu...

Posterior compartment of forearm and hand is among the most variable parts of the human body. During a routine dissection, we found two anatomical variants in the right forearm and hand of an 84-year-old male cadaver including the extensor indicis radialis and the extensor medii proprius associated with a fibromuscular slip. Histological analysis u...

Call to papers to special issue

I am very thankful to Kuznetsov for his comments on our recent paper about serial structures published in this journal. I hope this is just the beginning of a much wider, and holistic, discussion on the evolution of serial homologous structures, and of so‐called “serial structures” in general, whether they are truly serial homologs or the secondary...

For thousands of years, scientists have studied human anatomy by dissecting bodies. Our knowledge of their findings is limited, however, both by the subsequent loss of many of the oldest texts, and by a tendency toward a Eurocentric perspective in medicine. As a discipline, anatomy tends to be much more familiar with ancient Greek texts than with t...

It has long been assumed that serial homologues are ancestrally similar-polysomerism resulting from a "duplication" or "repetition" of forms-and then often diverge-anisomerism, for example, as they become adapted to perform different tasks as is the case with the forelimb and hind limbs of humans. However, such an assumption, with crucial implicati...

During the second half of the twentieth century, few authors attempted to combine the increasing knowledge obtained from the study of model organisms and human medicine with data from comparative anatomy, evolutionary biology, “natural mutants,” and variations in order to investigate the links between development, pathology, and macroevolution. How...

The study of evolutionary developmental pathologies (Evo-Devo-Path) is an emergent field that relies on comparative anatomy to inform our understanding of the development and evolution of normal and abnormal structures in different groups of organisms, with a special focus on humans. Previous research has demonstrated that some muscles that have be...

Narratives that describe models of how the world works involve some form of idealization, but all models are subjective and influenced by many human factors including the location, period of time, and profession of the narrator. Charles Darwin is a particularly fascinating case. Many scientists have tended—and continue—to idealize him as a person a...

Two main theories have been used to explain the origin of pectoral and pelvic appendages. The 'fin‐fold theory' proposes that they evolved from a trunk bilateral fin fold, while Gegenbaur's theory assumes they derived from the head branchial arches. However, none of these theories has been fully supported. The 'fin‐fold' theory is mainly often acce...

Come for free, participate in our round table discussions, and honor a great scientist and person. Free and open to anyone interested, with an amazing list of speakers and talks, as none of the most renowned scientists in the field that was invited wanted to miss this unique opportunity to honor the amazing Drew Noden.

Symposium honoring one of the greatest and most influential developmental biologist of the last decades.

Genetic engineering opens new possibilities for biomedical enhancement requiring ethical, societal and practical considerations to evaluate its implications for human biology, human evolution, and our natural environment. In this Commentary, we consider human enhancement, and in particular, we explore genetic enhancement in an evolutionary context....

Genetic engineering opens new possibilities for biomedical enhancement requiring ethical, societal and practical considerations to evaluate its implications for human biology, human evolution and our natural environment. In this Commentary, we consider human enhancement, and in particular, we explore genetic enhancement in an evolutionary context....

Ryan and Jetha's 2010 book "Sex at Dawn" caused a huge controversy within the academic community, with several papers, commentaries, and even a whole book, "Sex at Dusk: lifting the shiny wrapping from Sex at Dawn" published in 2012 by Saxon, being written to attack it. However, when one reads the so-called 'scientific' publications that were produ...

Significance Dogs were shaped during the course of domestication both in their behavior and in their anatomical features. Here we show that domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans. A muscle responsible for raising the inner eyebrow intensely is uniformly present in dogs but not i...

The ill-named “logic of monsters” hypothesis of Pere Alberch - one of the founders of modern evo-devo - emphasized the importance of “internal rules” due to strong developmental constraints, linked teratologies to developmental processes and patterns, and contradicted hypotheses arguing that birth defects are related to a chaotic and random disarra...

Lobe-fins transformed into limbs during the Devonian period, facilitating the water-to-land transition in tetra-pods. We traced the evolution of well-articulated skeletons across the fins-to-limbs transition, using a network-based approach to quantify and compare topological features of fins and limbs. We show that the topological arrangement of bo...

The hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis plays a crucial role in the metabolism, homeostasis, somatic growth and development of teleostean fishes. Thyroid hormones regulate essential biological functions such as growth and development, regulation of stress, energy expenditure, tissue compound, and psychological processes. Teleost thyroid folli...

Like other diapsids, Tyrannosaurus rex has two openings in the temporal skull region. In addition, like in other dinosaurs, its snout and lower jaw show large cranial fenestrae. In T .rex, they are thought to decrease skull weight, because, unlike most other amniotes, the skull proportion is immense compared to the body. Understanding morphofunctio...

This paper is part of the emerging field of Evolutionary Developmental Pathology, dedicated to study the links between normal and abnormal development, evolution and human pathologies. We analyzed the head musculoskeletal system of several ‘natural mutant’ newborn lambs displaying various degrees of abnormality, from mild defects to cebocephaly and...

The vertebrate head is the most complex part of the animal body and its diversity in nature reflects a variety of life styles, feeding modes, and ecological adaptations. This book will take you on a journey to discover the origin and diversification of the head, which evolved from a seemingly headless chordate ancestor. Despite their structural div...

Recent findings that urochordates are the closest sister-group of vertebrates have dramatically changed our understanding of chordate evolution and of the origin of the vertebrate head and its muscles. To better understand the evolution and diversity of chordates, in particular the morphological and taxonomical diversity of the vertebrates, it is c...

Recent findings that urochordates are the closest sister group of vertebrates have dramatically changed our understanding of chordate evolution and of the origin of the vertebrate head and its muscles. To better understand the evolution and diversity of chordates, in particular the morphological and taxonomical diversity of the vertebrates, it is c...

In this chapter we focus mainly on from where the head and neck muscles arose and how they evolved within the three major extant mammalian clades: monotremes, marsupials, and placentals. Within placentals, we pay special attention to primates, the group that includes our species, Homo sapiens. In fact, primates are an emblematic case study to show...

Evolution and Development of Fishes - edited by Zerina Johanson January 2019

Evolutionary developmental pathology, a new biological field, connects the study of evolution, development and human pathologies. In radial polydactyly, traditional studies have focused mainly on skeletal anomalies. This study examines anatomical and operative records of 54 consecutive cases of radial polydactyly to investigate whether there is a c...

The model organism Dario rerio (zebrafish) is widely used in evo-devo and comparative studies. Nevertheless, little is known about the development and differentiation of the appendicular musculature in this fish. In this study, we examined the development of the muscles of all five zebrafish fin types (pectoral, pelvic, anal, dorsal and caudal). We...

- Broadens your understanding on the origin of the vertebrate head - Provides a unique multidisciplinary coverage of the “Heads, Jaws and Muscles”, their evolution, and diversification among chordates - Written in a fluid, easy-to-understand way for both the scientific community as well as biology enthusiasts The vertebrate head is the most comple...