Genetic Archaeology News - November 2007 Archives

New study unravels how plants respond to light (11/30/2007)

Researchers report a breakthrough in understanding how plants perceive and respond to light. ...> Full Article

Hotspots found for chromosome gene-swapping (11/30/2007)

Simple mechanism for making sure that all chromosomes, even the shortest ones, have the crossovers required for meiosis ...> Full Article

Flowering plants evolved very quickly into five groups (11/30/2007)

Scientists have shed light on what Charles Darwin called the "abominable mystery" of early plant evolution. ...> Full Article

Global warming sends salamanders packing (11/29/2007)

A genetic study of the salamander family that encompasses two-thirds of the world's salamander species shows that periods of global warming helped the amphibians diversify and expand their range from North America into Europe and Asia, where pockets of them are still found today. ...> Full Article

Discovery of gene for black coat color in dogs has broad implications (11/29/2007)

The discovery of a gene responsible for black coat color in dogs may help researchers understand fundamental processes in humans, including the regulation of body weight and stress hormones. ...> Full Article

Gene study adds weight to theory that native people of the Americas arrived in a single main migration across the Bering Strait (11/28/2007)

Researchers analyze 678 genetic markers in 29 native populations ...> Full Article

Scientists melt million-year-old ice in search of ancient microbes (11/28/2007)

Researchers have thawed ice estimated to be at least a million years old from above Lake Vostok, an ancient lake that lies hidden more than two miles beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica. ...> Full Article

New discoveries about pig evolution in East Asia (11/27/2007)

The research into the origins of domestic animals is of significance not only for understanding their development per se, but also for understanding the human society evolution. Although there are evidences to show that pigs were independently domesticated in multiple places throughout the world, the detailed scenario of the origin and dispersal of domestic pigs in East Asia remains unclear. ...> Full Article

Bear hunting altered genetics more than Ice Age isolation (11/27/2007)

It was not the isolation of the Ice Age that determined the genetic distribution of bears, as has long been thought. This is shown by an international research team led from Uppsala University in Sweden in the latest issue of Molecular Ecology. One possible interpretation is that the hunting of bears by humans and human land use have been crucial factors. ...> Full Article

Tiny DNA Molecules Show Liquid Crystal Phases, Pointing Up New Scenario For First Life On Earth (11/26/2007)

A team has discovered some unexpected forms of liquid crystals of ultrashort DNA molecules immersed in water, providing a new scenario for a key step in the emergence of life on Earth. ...> Full Article

Bioclocks work by controlling chromosome coiling (11/26/2007)

There is a new twist on the question of how biological clocks work. ...> Full Article

Researchers has identified a gene for the ability to smell the odor of sweat (11/25/2007)

Some people are oblivious to the odor in the locker room after a game, while others wrinkle their noses at the slightest whiff of sweat. Research by Prof. ...> Full Article

Researchers Discover that a Handshake Could Signal High Quality Genes (11/24/2007)

Handgrip strength is an important measure of health and reproductive fitness. ...> Full Article

Flip-Flopping Gene Expression Can Be Advantageous (11/22/2007)

One gene for pea pod color generates green pods while a variant of that gene gives rise to the yellow-pod phenotype, a feature that helped Gregor Mendel, the 19th century Austrian priest and scientist, first describe genetic inheritance. However, many modern-day geneticists are focused on the strange ability of some genes to be expressed spontaneously in either of two possible ways. ...> Full Article

Should I eat the kids? When to care for, abandon, or eat your offspring (11/22/2007)

It is difficult to see how filial cannibalism, the consumption of one's own offspring, can be an adaptive evolutionary strategy. It is, however, common in many animals, and surprisingly is often coupled with parental care. ...> Full Article

Like father, like son: attractiveness is hereditary (11/21/2007)

Sexy dads produce sexy sons, in the insect world at least. While scientists already knew that specific attractive traits, from cricket choruses to peacocks' tails, are passed on to their offspring, the heritability of attractiveness as a whole is more contentious. Now, new research by the University of Exeter, published in the journal Current Biology, shows that attractiveness is hereditary. ...> Full Article

New Evidence For Female Control In Reproduction (11/21/2007)

Adding another layer of competition to the mating game, scientists are reporting possible biochemical proof that the reproductive system of female mammals can "sense" the presence of sperm and react to it by changing the uterine environment. This may be the molecular mechanism behind post-copulatory sexual selection, in which females that have mated with several partners play a role in determining which sperm fertilizes their egg. ...> Full Article

Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From Multi-Species Study (11/20/2007)

A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms. ...> Full Article

'Time-sharing' birds key to evolutionary mystery (11/19/2007)

Whereas most birds are sole proprietors of their nests, some tropical species "time share" together - a discovery that helps clear up a 150-year-old evolutionary mystery. ...> Full Article

Gene In Male Fish Lures Females Into Sex (11/19/2007)

A gene has been found in male cichlid fish that evolved to lure female fish so that male cichlids can deposit sperm in the females mouths. A study in the online open access journal BMC Biology reveals that the gene is associated with egg-like markings on the fins of cichlid fishes and uncovers the evolutionary history of these markings, which are central to the success of the fishes' exotic oral mating behaviour. ...> Full Article

Genetic technology reveals how poisonous mushrooms cook up toxins (11/18/2007)

Researchers discover remarkably small genes that produce mushroom toxin - a unique pathway previously unknown in fungi. ...> Full Article

Parasites might spur evolution of strange amphibian breeding habits (11/18/2007)

Parasites can decimate amphibian populations, but one researcher believes they might also play a role in spurring the evolution of new and sometimes bizarre breeding strategies. ...> Full Article

Fruit fly study advances genetics (11/17/2007)

The humble fruit fly has played a lead role on the scientific stage for more than a century. Tiny picnic pests to us, flies from a single species, Drosophila melanogaster, have provided a bounty of Nobel Prize-winning discoveries for researchers in the fields of genetics and developmental biology, and helped serve as models of human diseases such as Parkinson's and cancer. ...> Full Article

Simple reason helps males evolve more quickly (11/17/2007)

The observation that males evolve more quickly than females has been around since 19th century biologist Charles Darwin noted the majesty of a peacock's tail feather in comparison with the plainness of the peahen's. ...> Full Article

Evolutionary Biology Research on Plant Shows Significance of Maternal Effects (11/16/2007)

When habitat changes, animals migrate. But how do immobile organisms like plants cope when faced with alterations to their environment? This is an increasingly important question in light of new environmental conditions brought on by global climate change. ...> Full Article

The bacteria can cheat on their mates (11/16/2007)

Pursuing our own short term interests by cheating on the rest of the population is not the preserve of the human race. It seems bacteria can operate in just the same way. ...> Full Article

Ice age imprint found on cod DNA (11/15/2007)

An international team of researchers has demonstrated how Atlantic cod responded to past natural climate extremes. The new research could help in determining the vulnerability of cod to future global warming. ...> Full Article

Proteins pack tighter in crowded native state (11/15/2007)

The syrupy soup of proteins, ribosomes and membranes inside a living cell is so tightly packed it may increase the structural content of proteins by as much as 25 percent, according to new research from Rice University and the University of Houston. The study is one of the first aimed at determining how the crowded environment inside a living cell affects protein structure. ...> Full Article

Ancient retroviruses spurred evolution of gene regulatory networks in primates (11/14/2007)

When ancient retroviruses slipped bits of their DNA into the primate genome millions of years ago, they successfully preserved their own genetic legacy. Today an estimated 8 percent of the human genetic code consists of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs)--the DNA remnants from these so-called 'selfish parasites.' ...> Full Article

Changing environment organizes genetic structure (11/14/2007)

Study finds biological complexity arises from self-organizing structure of genes ...> Full Article

Are there rearrangement hot spots in the human genome? (11/13/2007)

The debate over the validity of genomic rearrangement "hotspots" has its most recent addition in a new theory put forth by researchers at the University of California San Diego. The study, published on November 9 in PLoS Computational Biology, holds that there are indeed rearrangement hotspots in the human genome. ...> Full Article

Genomic revelations from fly's family tree (11/12/2007)

Fruit fly genomes provide window to genome function, clues for mammal studies ...> Full Article

To fight disease, animals, like plants, can tolerate parasites (11/11/2007)

Animals, like plants, can build tolerance to infections at a genetic level, and these findings could provide a better understanding of the epidemiology and evolution of infectious disease, according to evolutionary biologists. ...> Full Article

All Male or All Female Litter? Sex-ratio Meiotic Drive System Identified In Fruit Flies (11/10/2007)

If you met a person who had 10 children, all of whom were girls, you would probably find this surprising. Yet this kind of distorted sex ratio does occur in groups as diverse as mammals, insects, and plants, where some parents consistently produce litters in which the sex ratio is dramatically skewed. ...> Full Article

Genetics plays role in determining sexual orientation (11/9/2007)

Is sexual orientation something people are born with -- like the colour of their skin and eyes -- or a matter of choice? ...> Full Article

When animals evolve on islands, size doesn't matter (11/9/2007)

A theory explaining the evolution of giant rodents, miniature elephants, and even miniature humans on islands has been called into question by new research ...> Full Article

When Are Genes 'Adventurous' And When Are They Conservative? (11/8/2007)

Taking a chance on an experiment – this is one of the impulses that drive evolution. Living cells are, from this angle, great subjects for experimentation: Changes in one molecule can have all sorts of interesting consequences for many other molecules in the cell. Such experiments on genes and proteins have led the cell, and indeed all life, on a long and fascinating evolutionary journey. ...> Full Article

Twelve Fly Genomes Published (11/8/2007)

The complete genomes of 12 related species of the fly Drosophila are published this week in the journal Nature. One of the 12, Drosophila melanogaster, is widely used in studies of genetics and development, and its genome was published in 2000. The new work refines understanding of fruit fly genomics, but it also has implications for understanding the human genome. ...> Full Article

Scientists Devise Novel, Low-Cost Method of Sifting Genome's High-Value Regions (11/7/2007)

Technique Opens New Horizons For Scientists Seeking Disease-Related Genes ...> Full Article

Get in Touch First (11/5/2007)

When the genetic material inside a cell's nucleus starts to fall apart, a protein called ATM takes charge and orchestrates the rescue mission. Surprisingly, for ATM to kick into full gear, the stretches of DNA flanking a chromosomal break are just as important as the damaged site itself, report scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. ...> Full Article

A 'Risk Distribution Law' for Evolution (11/5/2007)

When are the genes adventuresome, and when are they conservative? ...> Full Article

Human Microbiome Projects to sequence 150 bacteria, sample human metagenome (11/4/2007)

A $2.3 million grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute will enable researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center in Houston to determine the genetic code of bacteria that colonize healthy humans and study the structure of microbial communities from five regions of the human body. ...> Full Article

Tangled Web Of The Insect, Plant And Parasite Arms Race (11/4/2007)

New insights into the evolutionary relationship between plant-dwelling insects and their parasites are revealed in the online open access journal BMC Biology. Researchers shed light on how sawflies evolved to escape their parasites and gain themselves an 'enemy-free space' for millions of years. ...> Full Article

Origins of greater horseshoe bat uncovered (11/3/2007)

Genetic work has found that the UK's population of greater horseshoe bats originated from west Asia around 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. ...> Full Article

Research sheds light on why humans and chimps differ (11/2/2007)

Gene splicing helps explain fundamental differences ...> Full Article

Domestic Cat Genome Sequenced (11/2/2007)

The DNA of a 4-year-old Abyssinian cat named Cinnamon, whose well-documented lineage can be traced back several generations to Sweden, has been sequenced. Cinnamon is one of several mammals that are currently being analyzed using "light" (two-fold) genome sequence coverage. To make sense of Cinnamon's raw sequence data, a multi-center collaboration of scientists leveraged information from previously sequenced mammalian genomes as well as previous gene-mapping studies in the cat. In doing so, they found that Cinnamon's sequences spanned about 65% of the euchromatic (gene-containing) regions of the feline genome. ...> Full Article

Team IDs ancient cargo from DNA (11/1/2007)

For the first time, researchers have identified DNA from inside ceramic containers in an ancient shipwreck on the seafloor, making it possible to determine what the ship's cargo was even though there was no visible trace of it. ...> Full Article

How Did Chemical Constituents Essential To Life Arise On Primitive Earth? (11/1/2007)

Experiments show that simple molecules can combine chemically rather than biologically to form the building blocks of DNA, the key component of all life forms. These processes might have taken place on primitive earth, but how they occur is an unsolved puzzle. ...> Full Article