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Categories: Biology: Developmental, Offbeat: Plants and Animals

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Using environmental DNA analysis, an international team of researchers identified a collection of plants used in ceremonial rituals in the ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah in Mexico. The plants, known for their religious associations and medicinal properties, were discovered beneath a plaza floor where a ballcourt was built.

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Different types of barley recruit distinct communities of soil microbes to grow around their roots by releasing a custom mix of sugars and other compounds, according to a new study.

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Mice lacking an olfactory system have had their sense of smell restored with neurons from rats, the first time scientists have successfully integrated the sensory apparatus of one species into another.

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How do birds fly in a coordinated and seemingly effortless fashion? Part of the answer lies in precise, and previously unknown, aerodynamic interactions, reports a team of mathematicians. Its breakthrough broadens our understanding of wildlife, including fish, who move in schools, and could have applications in transportation and energy.

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Researchers have developed a web-based platform that offers an unprecedented view of the human body at the cellular level. The aim is to create an invaluable resource for researchers worldwide to increase knowledge about human health and disease.

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Conditions such as diabetes, heart attack and vascular diseases commonly diagnosed in people with spinal cord injuries can be traced to abnormal post-injury neuronal activity that causes abdominal fat tissue compounds to leak and pool in the liver and other organs, a new animal study has found.

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Cells constantly navigate a dynamic environment, facing ever-changing conditions and challenges. But how do cells swiftly adapt to these environmental fluctuations? A new study is answering that question by challenging our understanding of how cells function. A team of researchers suggests that cells possess a previously unknown information processing system that allows them to make rapid decisions independent of their genes.

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Oncorhynchus rastrosus, a giant species of salmon that lived in the North American Pacific Northwest a few million years ago, sported a pair of front teeth that projected out from the sides of its mouth like tusks, according to a new study.

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Every cuckoo is an adopted child -- raised by foster parents, into whose nest the cuckoo mother smuggled her egg. The cuckoo mother is aided in this subterfuge by her resemblance to a bird of prey. There are two variants of female cuckoos: a gray morph that looks like a sparrowhawk, and a rufous morph. Male cuckoos are always gray.

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The beginning of life is shrouded in mystery. While the intricate dynamics of mitosis is well-studied in the so-called somatic cells -- the cells that have a specialized function, like skin and muscle cells -- they remain elusive in the first cells of our bodies, the embryonic cells. Embryonic mitosis is notoriously difficult to study in vertebrates, as live functional analyses and -imaging of experimental embryos are technically limited, which makes it hard to track cells during embryogenesis.

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Their first vocalizations help young zebra finch males to memorize the songs of adults.

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Researchers explain the genomic and developmental basis of the patagium, the thin skin membrane that allows some mammalian species to soar through the air.

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Bioluminescence first evolved in animals at least 540 million years ago in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals, according to the results of a new study. The study focuses on an ancient group of marine invertebrates that includes soft corals, pushes back the previous oldest dated example of trait by nearly 300 million years.

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The day a male spear squid hatches determines which mating tactic he will use throughout his life, according to new research. Spear squid (Heterololigo bleekeri) that hatch earlier in the season become 'consorts' which fight for mating opportunities. Those which hatch later become 'sneakers,' which use more clandestine mating tactics. Researchers found that the mating tactic determined by the birth date was fixed for the squid's whole life. Understanding how mating tactics are influenced by birth date, and the environmental conditions at that time, can help researchers consider how squid might be affected by climate change and the implications for marine resource management.

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When we think of evolution, we think of a process that happens over hundreds or thousands of years. In research recently published, a species of frog that has evolved over the course of merely 25 years. The adaptation was spurred on by something many assume is innocuous: salt.

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Researchers describe the steps they took to manipulate DNA and proteins -- essential building blocks of life -- to create cells that look and act like cells from the body. This accomplishment, a first in the field, has implications for efforts in regenerative medicine, drug delivery systems and diagnostic tools.

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Palaeontologists have solved a hundred-year-old mystery of how some fossil frogs preserve their fleshy parts -- it's all down to their skin. Palaeontologists studied 45-million-year-old fossil frogs from the Geiseltal site in central Germany. Remarkably, the fossils show full body outlines of the soft tissues. The team discovered that the excellent condition of the fossil frogs is due to preservation of ancient skin remnants.

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Researchers have developed a method to use an image generation AI model to create realistic images of single cells, which are then used as 'synthetic data' to train an AI model to better carry out single-cell segmentation.

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In a scientific breakthrough, researchers have revealed the biological mechanisms by which a family of proteins known as histone deacetylases (HDACs) activate immune system cells linked to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other inflammatory diseases.

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An international team has mapped the movement of proteins encoded by the yeast genome throughout its cell cycle. This is the first time that all the proteins of an organism have been tracked across the cell cycle, which required a combination of deep learning and high-throughput microscopy.