|
Genetic Archaeology News - August 2007 Archives
 | A University of Arkansas researcher examines the physiology of starvation in snakes and finds that they can lower their standard metabolic rate. ...> Full Article |
 | Bacterial to animal gene transfers shown to be widespread, with implications for evolution and control of diseases and pests ...> Full Article |
 | Some leading scientists who have studied warfare through the ages have long suggested that humans — the males of the species, at least — have little choice when it comes to slaughtering one another in great numbers. Such warlike behavior, the scholars contend, is hardwired into the human brain. ...> Full Article |
 | Fruit flies like a little seltzer in their drinks, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. ...> Full Article |
 | Brood parasitic birds, which place their eggs in a nest for other birds to care for, can act like an inherited disease, affecting future generations of the birds they victimize. ...> Full Article |
 | Biologists at Harvard University have identified the ancient fossilized remains of a pollen-bearing bee as the first hint of orchids in the fossil record, a find they say suggests orchids are old enough to have coexisted with dinosaurs. ...> Full Article |
 | Female beetles mate to quench their thirst according to new research by a scientist from the University of Exeter's School of Biosciences. The males of some insect species, including certain types of beetles, moths and crickets, produce unusually large ejaculates, which in some cases can account for around 10% of their body weight. The study shows that dehydrated females can accept sexual invitations simply to get hold of the water in the seminal fluid. ...> Full Article |
 | New Study Demonstrates Flowers Evolve Different Shapes to Reduce Competition for Bat Pollination ...> Full Article |
 | Is heading straight for a goal the quickest way there? If the name of the game is evolution, suggests new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the pace might speed up if the goals themselves change continuously. ...> Full Article |
 | A research team has for the first time ever discovered DNA from living bacteria that are more than half a million years old. Never before has traces of still living organisms that old been found. ...> Full Article |
 | A University of Adelaide-led project will study the genetic makeup of one of Australia's most iconic animals, the echidna, to give an unprecedented insight into their sex life and behaviour. ...> Full Article |
 | Cooperation is widespread in the natural world but so too are cheats -- mutants that do not contribute to the collective good but simply reap the benefits of others' cooperative efforts. In evolutionary terms, cheats should indeed prosper, so how cooperation persists despite the threat of cheat takeover is a fundamental question. Recently, biologists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford have found that in bacteria, cheats actually orchestrate their own downfall. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists are completing a biological map that is critical for the sequencing of the bovine genome. ...> Full Article |
 | How does genetic information from more than 100,000 years ago help to explain climate changes through time and their effect on plant and human populations? ...> Full Article |
 | New findings from insect studies at Queen's and U of T may help to protect our brains from extremely high fevers that sometimes trigger seizures, particularly in infants and small children. ...> Full Article |
 | A University of Colorado at Boulder team excavating an ancient Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has discovered an ancient field of manioc, the first evidence for cultivation of the calorie-rich tuber in the New World. ...> Full Article |
 | Hitting it off with members of the opposite sex takes chemistry. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists have discovered a pattern in the DNA sequence of the mouse genome that may play a fundamental part in the way DNA molecules regulate gene expression. The research, led by Emory University scientists along with colleagues at Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany, will be published in the Aug. 22 Advance Online publication of the journal Nature. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers have found that New Caledonian crows--which are known to make complex food-getting tools in the wild--can also spontaneously use one tool on another to get a snack. ...> Full Article |
University of Adelaide researchers have discovered a way of creating a male mouse without a Y chromosome by manipulating a single gene in the developing foetus.
...> Full Article
 | Jeffrey Dean, professor of forest biotechnology in the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, is spearheading a project at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) that will greatly expand the gene catalog for pines and initiate the first gene discovery efforts in five other conifer families. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists have suspected that the three known domains of life -- eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea -- branched off and went their separate ways around three billion years ago. But pinning down the time of that split has been an elusive task. ...> Full Article |
 | Rubbish heaps and backyard gardens helped early farmers domesticate crop plants, according to Oxford University scientists. Their research confirms that seeds and fruits gathered in the wild and then discarded or planted at home created a 'backyard melting pot' that gave rise to novel hybrids. Ancient people were quick to spot useful hybrids and start growing them as crops as the first village farms were established, around 4,000 years ago. ...> Full Article |
 | Genetic studies on whole animals can now be done dramatically faster using a new microchip developed by engineers at MIT. ...> Full Article |
 | Employing microsatellite and mitochondrial control region (CR) sequences as genetic markers, CAS researchers have obtained some key information about the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and depicted its recent evolution history. They discovered that the lovely species still possesses high genetic diversity and evolution potentials, putting an end to the hypothesis suggesting the giant panda is facing an 'evolutionary dead-end'. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a chemical compound in male blue crabs that is not present in females -- the first time in any species that an entire enzyme system has been found to be activated in only one sex. ...> Full Article |
 | An Australian bird has been found to produce smaller, less nourishing eggs when it breeds in the presence of other 'helper' birds that provide child-care assistance. This unique adaptation enables the birds to live longer and breed more often than females without helpers. The research, led by a University of Cambridge academic, was published in Science. ...> Full Article |
 | "Don't ever change" isn't just a romantic platitude. It's a solid evolutionary strategy. ...> Full Article |
 | An Alaska wolf that disappeared about 12,000 years ago just made another appearance. ...> Full Article |
 | Portuguese scientists show that in bacteria the rate of beneficial mutations – those that increase the capacity of an organism to survive in a particular environment – is much higher than previously thought. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the UK and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin, Germany, have found that female hyenas avoid inbreeding with their male relatives by giving them little choice but to leave their birth group. ...> Full Article |
 | Delaying having kids to help raise the offspring of others seems like a bad choice if you want to reproduce, but many African starlings have adopted this strategy to deal with the unpredictable climate of their savanna habitats, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University biologists. It appears in the Aug. 21 issue of the journal Current Biology. ...> Full Article |
 | An international team of scientists from Canada (Université Laval), the U.K. (University of Hull, Cardiff University) and Spain (Doňana Biological Station), have discovered that a pair of closely related species of East African cichlid fishes -- a group of fish whose diversity comprising hundreds of species has puzzled evolutionary biologists for decades -- evolved divergent immune gene adaptations which might explain why they do not interbreed, despite living side by side. ...> Full Article |
 | When the first four-legged animals sprouted fingers and toes, they took an ancient genetic recipe and simply extended the cooking time, say University of Florida scientists writing in Wednesday's issue of the journal PLoS One. ...> Full Article |
 | A detailed map that pinpoints the location of every atom in a 450-million-year-old resurrected protein reveals the precise evolutionary steps needed to create the molecule's modern version, according to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Oregon. ...> Full Article |
 | Men with large jaws, flaring cheeks and large eyebrows are sexy, at least in the eyes of our ancestors, researchers at the Natural History Museum have discovered. Facial attractiveness played a major role in shaping human evolution, as studies on our fossil ancestors have shown our choice of sexual partner has shaped the human face. ...> Full Article |
 | Most modern attempts to decipher how portions of genetic code are translated into physical characteristics are akin to a first-grader trying to sound out a word letter by letter - or, in this case, base pair by base pair. ...> Full Article |
.jpg) | A researcher at the University of Sheffield has discovered that the reason birds learn to fly so easily is because latent memories may have been left behind by their ancestors. ...> Full Article |
 | Biologists at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, have found that a simple interaction between just two genes determines the patterns of fur coloration that camouflage mice against their background, protecting them from many predators. The work, published recently in the journal PLoS Biology, marks one of the few instances in which specific genetic changes have been linked to an organism's ability to survive in the wild. ...> Full Article |
 | The plant growth hormone auxin is controlled by circadian rhythms within the plant, UC Davis researchers have found. The discovery explains how plants can time their growth to take advantage of resources such as light and water, and suggests that many other processes may be influenced by circadian rhythms. ...> Full Article |
 | Findings indicate alternative splicing is highly regulated ...> Full Article |
 | Duke researchers found variances in two major traits when they compared gene regulation in chimps, humans and rhesus macaques ...> Full Article |
 | A gene mutation that appears to be responsible for changing relatively mild forms of the West Nile virus into a highly virulent and deadly disease in American crows has been identified by a team of scientists led by a researcher at the University of California, Davis. ...> Full Article |
 | Scott Cummins and his colleagues at The University of Queensland have uncovered a potent mix of chemicals which acts like a cross between Chanel No 5 and Viagra—but only if you are a sea slug. ...> Full Article |
 | A little boy's natural curiosity may have turned up archeological evidence that the earliest Native Americans came from Europe, not Asia. ...> Full Article |
 | Rainforests are the world's treasure houses of biodiversity, but all rainforests are not the same. Biodiversity may be more evenly distributed in some forests than in others and, therefore, may require different management and preservation strategies. That is one of the conclusions of a large-scale Smithsonian study of a lowland rainforest in New Guinea, published in the Aug. 9 issue of the journal Nature. ...> Full Article |
It is not just what's in your genes, it's how you turn them on that accounts for the difference between species - at least in yeast - according to a report by Yale researchers in this week's issue of Science.
...> Full Article
 | Using DNA sequence data, botanists have shown that the large southern hemisphere plant family Proteaceae lived on the super-continent Gondwanaland almost 120 million years ago. ...> Full Article |
 | Approximately 250 million years ago, vast numbers of species disappeared from Earth. This mass-extinction event may hold clues to current global carbon cycle changes, according to Jonathan Payne, assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences. Payne, a paleobiologist who joined the Stanford faculty in 2005, studies the Permian-Triassic extinction and the following 4 million years of instability in the global carbon cycle. In the July issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, Payne presented evidence that a massive, rapid release of carbon may have triggered this extinction. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have cast new light on why the giant insects that lived millions of years ago disappeared. ...> Full Article |
 | No sooner had cells evolved linear chromosomes than they had a life-threatening problem to solve. To the machinery that repairs broken DNA, chromosome ends look a lot like breaks in need of mending, so they could elicit a DNA damage response that would ultimately be lethal to cells. Telomeres, segments of DNA that sit at the ends of chromosomes, resolve this situation by protecting chromosome ends from being mistaken for DNA breaks. Now, new research shows that two proteins work independently to repress - and control - the activation of damage response pathways that might otherwise cause chromosomes to be harmed. ...> Full Article |
 | Assessing the projected impacts of invasive species is a leading issue for scientists today. A major question for ecologists is determining which characteristics will predispose a species to be a good or bad colonizer when introduced into an ecosystem. New research from assistant professor at the UGA Odum School of Ecology John Drake adds another piece to the invasive species puzzle. ...> Full Article |
 | Transcription - the transfer of DNA's genetic information through the synthesis of complementary molecules of messenger RNA - forms the basis of all cellular activities. Yet little is known about the dynamics of the process - how efficient it is or how long it takes. Now, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have measured the stages of transcription in real time. Their unexpected and surprising findings have fundamentally changed the way transcription is understood. ...> Full Article |
 | The coconut has been popular in lore and on palates for centuries, yet little is known about the history of coconut's domestication and dispersal around the world. ...> Full Article |
 | Studies of desert duo show there's more to life than predator eats prey ...> Full Article |
 | Two new fossils, described this week in the journal Nature, cast fresh light on a little understood and important period of human prehistory at the dawn of our own genus, Homo. ...> Full Article |
 | A deadly fungus that has decimated populations of mountain yellow-legged frogs in the Sierra Nevada can likely be spread by sexual reproduction, seriously complicating efforts to save the frogs from extinction, according to a new genetic analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers at North Carolina State University have received a five-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a series of "photo-switchable" compounds that will allow scientists to turn individual genes on and off within zebrafish embryos, enabling them to determine the function of particular genes. ...> Full Article |
 | Nectar-feeding bats burn sugar faster than any other mammal on Earth - and three times faster than even top-class athletes - ecologists have discovered. ...> Full Article |
 | The DNA of ancient microorganisms, long frozen in glaciers, may return to life as the glaciers melt, according to a paper published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and Boston University. The article is scheduled to appear in the print edition on Tuesday, Aug. 14. ...> Full Article |
| Studies in Science Express and Nature Genetics revise an understanding of sex evolution and genetic heritage. ...> Full Article |
Chronology and adaptability of early humans in different paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental settings are important topics in the study of human evolution.
...> Full Article
University of Queensland researchers have identified microbial remains in some of the oldest preserved organic matter on Earth, confirmed to be 3.5 billion years-old.
...> Full Article
Finding an immune system in the social amoeba (Dictyostelium discoideum) is not only surprising but it also may prove a clue as to what is necessary for an organism to become multicellular, said the Baylor College of Medicine researcher who led the research that appears in the journal Science.
...> Full Article
 | A research team, including UC Riverside biologists, has found experimental evidence that supports a controversial theory of genetic conflict in the reproduction of those animals that support their developing offspring through a placenta. ...> Full Article |
 | Alexander Kaiser, Ph.D., of Midwestern University's Department of Pharmacology, Division of Basic Sciences, was the lead author in a recent study to help determine why insects, once dramatically larger than they are today, have seen such a remarkable reduction in size over the course of history. ...> Full Article |
 | The luscious aroma of flowers attracts lovers, and the biological role of that smell is similar: to attract pollinators. "Plants need to attract insects, bats and hummingbirds to transfer the pollen and create fertile seeds,"ť says Hugh Iltis, professor emeritus of botany at UW-Madison. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers in an ongoing U.S.-Cuban archaeological expedition, co-led by The University of Alabama, are attempting to learn more about the native people Christopher Columbus encountered on his first voyage to the New World. ...> Full Article |
 | Research from The University of Nottingham sheds new light on a fascinating phenomenon of the natural world - the ability of some species to reproduce sexually without a partner. ...> Full Article |
 | A 400 million-year-old fossil of a coelacanth fin, the first finding of its kind, fills a shrinking evolutionary gap between fins and limbs. University of Chicago scientists describe the finding in a paper highlighted on the cover of the July/August 2007 issue of Evolution & Development. ...> Full Article |
 | An international group of scientists, led by a team from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University, have discovered a gene that increases an individual's chances of being left-handed. A report of the study is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. ...> Full Article |
The age-old debate of nature versus nurture has a new twist: Scientists say the two N's may be so entwined that their influence on our genes combines to shape our health and development in ways we never imagined.
...> Full Article
To help molecular biologists in the difficult task of keeping abreast of current events in the world of cells and organisms, they employ reporter genes to 'broadcast' specific happenings.
...> Full Article
Researchers from Saint Louis University (SLU) and Peking University in China are revealing for the first time the findings of a discovery that could change the way we think about the development of life on Earth.
...> Full Article
 | The abundant diversity of characteristics within species likely helped fuel the proliferation and evolution of an odd-looking creature that emerged from an unprecedented explosion of life on Earth more than 500 million years ago. University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster reports this finding in the July 27 issue of the journal Science. ...> Full Article |
Over a hundred Cumbrian volunteers are needed to give blood samples to help researchers at Newcastle University as part of a national study which uses genetic information to reveal the history of British people.
...> Full Article
Experiments in animals have provided additional and tantalizing evidence that what a pregnant mother eats can make her offspring more susceptible to disease later in life.
...> Full Article
 | With the aid of a $530,000, three-year National Science Foundation grant, Indiana University Bloomington biologist Armin Moczek will continue his research into the origin and diversification of beetle horns. Horned beetles are increasingly being recognized as a new model system in evolutionary and developmental biology, and this is the second NSF grant given to Moczek to further develop his study system. ...> Full Article |
Today, researchers from the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center (UCDHSC), along with colleagues from Stanford University, report the results of a large-scale, genome-wide study to investigate gene copy number differences among ten primate species, including humans.
...> Full Article
New radiocarbon analysis dates human skull to 33,000 years ago
...> Full Article
The moment a bacterial pathogen makes contact with its host, its goal is simple: to infect. To do the job, it has to turn a specific array of genes on and off and show a little know-how in adapting to its new environment. A new tool developed at Rockefeller University allows scientists to identify more precisely than before this specific array of genes - known and unknown - that are expressed as a result of this interaction as well as determine what functions they may perform.
...> Full Article
|
|
Subscribe
Fish can recognize a face based on UV pattern alone
'Anaconda' meets 'Jurassic Park': Study shows ancient snakes ate dinosaur babies
Scientists locate apparent hydrothermal vents off Antarctica
Mars Express heading for closest flyby of Phobos
Artificial bee silk a big step closer to reality
Predicting the fate of stem cells
Artificial foot recycles energy for easier walking
New fiber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing
What drives our genes? Researchers map the first complete human epigenome
Juggling enhances connections in the brain
Tracking down the human 'odorprint'
Fill 'er up - with algae
Scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos
Researchers help identify cows that gain more while eating less
Scientific breakthrough in genetic studies of animal domestication
Scientists discover 600 million-year-old origins of vision
Unselfish molecules may have helped give birth to the genetic material of life
Exploring Echinacea's enigmatic origins
Lizard moms choose the right genes for the right gender offspring
Modern man found to be generally monogamous, moderately polygamous
Ancient DNA from rare fossil reveals that polar bears evolved recently and adapted quickly
Does promiscuity prevent extinction?
Stickleback genomes shining bright light on evolution
Researchers uncover DNA sequence of extinct ancient cattle
Small dogs originated in the Middle East