Genetic Archaeology News Archives Page 14

Rise Of Dinosaurs Not So Rapid After All (7/21/2007)

Fossils discovered in the oft-painted arroyos of northern New Mexico show for the first time that dinosaurs and their non-dinosaur ancestors lived side by side for tens of millions of years, disproving the notion that dinosaurs rapidly replaced their supposedly outmoded predecessors. ...> Full Article

Species Detectives Track Unseen Evolution (7/21/2007)

New species are evading detection using a foolproof disguise -- their own unchanged appearance. Research published in the journal, BMC Evolutionary Biology, suggests that the phenomenon of different animal species not being visually distinct despite other significant genetic differences is widespread in the animal kingdom. ...> Full Article

Sequencing Method Yields Fuller Picture (7/20/2007)

Sequence data for both chromosomes can be inferred under the right circumstances, USC biologists say. ...> Full Article

How Pathogens Evolve To Escape Detection (7/20/2007)

An arms race is under way in the plant world. It is an evolutionary battle in which plants are trying to beef up their defenses against the innovative strategies of pathogens. The latest example of this war is a bacterium (Pseudomonas syringae) that infects tomatoes by injecting a special protein into the plant's cells and undermines the plant's defense system. ...> Full Article

New Research Proves Single Origin Of Humans In Africa (7/20/2007)

New research published in the journal Nature (19 July) has proved the single origin of humans theory by combining studies of global genetic variations in humans with skull measurements across the world. The research, at the University of Cambridge and funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), represents a final blow for supporters of a multiple origins of humans theory. ...> Full Article

Vaccine Trials Inject Hope Into Koala's Future (7/19/2007)

The first Australian trials of a vaccine developed by Queensland University of Technology that could save Australia's iconic koala from contracting chlamydia are planned to begin later this year. ...> Full Article

Study Identifies Energy Efficiency As Reason For Evolution Of Upright Walking (7/19/2007)

A new study provides support for the hypothesis that walking on two legs, or bipedalism, evolved because it used less energy than quadrupedal knucklewalking. ...> Full Article

New DNA Sequencing Technology Uses Firefly Enzymes To Read Genetic Code (7/18/2007)

Unique technology that uses the enzymes of fireflies to read the genetic code of DNA has been installed at the University of Liverpool. ...> Full Article

Arctive Foxes Once Thought To Be Monogamous Now Shown To Sleep Around (7/18/2007)

- Bees do it, chimps do it... Now it seems Arctic foxes do it, too. New research looking at the DNA fingerprints of canids in the Far North has revealed that foxes once thought to be monogamous are in fact quite frisky. ...> Full Article

Rapid Evolution Of Non-Coding DNA Since The Split Between Human And Chimp Genome (7/18/2007)

A difference of only a few percent in DNA sequence is thought to separate the human and chimp genomes. New research published in Genome Biology identifies the subset of sequences that may have driven the evolution of our two species. ...> Full Article

A First-Principles Model Of Early Evolution (7/17/2007)

In a study publishing in PLoS Computational Biology, Shakhnovich et al present a new model of early biological evolution -- the first that directly relates the fitness of a population of evolving model organisms to the properties of their proteins. ...> Full Article

Initial DNA Analysis Support Positive Identification Of Queen Hatshepsut (7/17/2007)

Preliminary results from DNA tests carried out on a mummy believed to be Queen Hatshepsut is expected to support the claim by Egyptian authorities that the remains are indeed those of Egypt's most powerful female ruler. ...> Full Article

Research Discovers Children With Tourette's Develop Grammar Skills Faster (7/17/2007)

Children with Tourette's syndrome may have to put up with some unwanted movement and verbal tics, but neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Kennedy Krieger Institute have found that they are much quicker at processing certain mental grammar skills than are children without the disorder. ...> Full Article

Evidence Of Very Recent Human Adaptation: Up To 10 Percent Of Human Genome May Have Changed (7/16/2007)

A Cornell study of genome sequences in African-Americans, European-Americans and Chinese suggests that natural selection has caused as much as 10 percent of the human genome to change in some populations in the last 15,000 to 100,000 years, when people began migrating from Africa. ...> Full Article

Researchers Witness Natural Selection At Work In Dramatic Comeback Of Male Butterflies (7/16/2007)

An international team of researchers has documented a remarkable example of natural selection in a tropical butterfly species that fought back - genetically speaking - against a highly invasive, male-killing bacteria. ...> Full Article

Sour Taste Make You Pucker? It May Be In Your Genes (7/15/2007)

Scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center report that genes play a large role in determining individual differences in sour taste perception. The findings may help researchers identify the still-elusive taste receptor that detects sourness in foods and beverages, just as recent gene studies helped uncover receptors for sweet and bitter taste. ...> Full Article

How Plants Learned To Respond To Changing Environments (7/15/2007)

A team of John Innes Centre scientists led by Professor Nick Harberd have discovered how plants evolved the ability to adapt to changes in climate and environment. Plants adapt their growth, including key steps in their life cycle such as germination and flowering, to take advantage of environmental conditions . They can also repress growth when their environment is not favourable. This involves many complex signalling pathways which are integrated by the plant growth hormone gibberellin. ...> Full Article

Professor Probing The Evolution Of Tropical Orchids (7/14/2007)

John Cushman, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology professor, is making great strides in the ongoing research of plants with the metabolic ability to use less water than other plants. ...> Full Article

International Team Studying Remarkably Well-Preserved Baby Siberian Mammoth (7/14/2007)

University of Michigan paleontologist Daniel Fisher just returned from Siberia where he spent a week as part of a six-member international team that examined the frozen, nearly intact remains of a 4-month-old female woolly mammoth. ...> Full Article

Cells Take Risks With Their Identities (7/14/2007)

Biologists have long thought that a simple on/off switch controls most genes in human cells. Flip the switch and a cell starts or stops producing a particular protein. But new evidence suggests that this model is too simple and that our genes are more ready for action than previously thought. ...> Full Article

Exploring the Genetic Diversity of Flowers (7/13/2007)

Unlike moths and butterflies that are often brilliantly colored to warn potential predators that they carry toxins, flowers and the fruits they produce have brilliant colors and unusual shapes because they want to attract the attention of pollinators and frugivores who will disperse their pollen and seed, thus guaranteeing the next generation. ...> Full Article

Rapid Evolution Of Defense Genes In Plants May Produce Hybrid Incompatibility (7/13/2007)

Species are kept separate in plants and animals through barriers to gene flow. However, the exact mechanisms of speciation have only been explained within the last 20 years. Scientists found that one mechanism, hybrid necrosis, is associated with a plant defense gene. Different forms of these rapidly evolving genes in parent plants can cause autoimmune responses leading to offspring inviability and may represent a molecular pathway to speciation unique to plants. ...> Full Article

Successful Attempt At Identifying Insect-Specific Proteins (7/13/2007)

With nearly one million classified and named species, the insecta clade is the most diverse group of higher organisms on earth in terms of category, behavior, physiology and genetics. Although scientists have discovered that this high divergence results from the organism's adaptation to the environment and its long-time evolution over the past 400 million years, the reason and genetic mechanisms behind it remain unclear. Furthermore, despite the findings that proteins specific to the insect are the major future to distinguish it from others, people are not clear what they are. ...> Full Article

Ancient Americans Ate Chili Peppers 1,500 Years Ago (7/12/2007)

One of the world's tastiest and most popular cuisines, Mexican food also may be one of the oldest. ...> Full Article

New Discoveries From Ethiopia Fill Major Gap In Fossil Record (7/12/2007)

Scientists working in the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar Region, Ethiopia, have recovered fossils that may prove to be a bridge to establishing a relationship between the earlier Australopithecus anamensis (4.2 - 3.9 million years) and the later Australopithecus afarensis (3 - 3.6 million years) early human species. ...> Full Article

Researchers Discover How microRNAs Control Protein Synthesis (7/12/2007)

While most RNAs work to create, package, and transfer proteins as determined by the cell's immediate needs, miniature pieces of RNA, called microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression. Recently, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine determined how miRNAs team up with a regulatory protein to halt protein production. Results of the study were published recently in Cell. ...> Full Article

No Volcanic Winter� After Super Volcano Eruption (7/12/2007)

One of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth's history may not have had the cataclysmic effects that some scientists have proposed, Cambridge-led research has revealed. ...> Full Article

Internal Clock, External Light Regulate Plant Growth (7/11/2007)

Most plants and animals show changes in activity over a 24-hour cycle. Now, for the first time, researchers have shown how a plant combines signals from its internal clock with those from the environment to show a daily rhythm of growth. ...> Full Article

Neutral Evolution Has Helped Shape Our Genome (7/11/2007)

Johns Hopkins researchers have added to the growing mound of evidence that many of the genetic bits and pieces that drive evolutionary changes do not confer any advantages or disadvantages to humans or other animals. ...> Full Article

Translational RNA Can Translate More DNA Than Previously Thought (7/11/2007)

The genetic information of our chromosomes is encoded into the language of DNA. This language is composed of code words, each representing one of the 20 amino acids found in proteins. How do cells translate the language of genetic information into functioning proteins? ...> Full Article