Showing 20 articles starting at article 441

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Biology: Evolutionary, Space: General

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Sound waves thought to be from a 2014 meteor fireball north of Papua New Guinea were almost certainly vibrations from a truck rumbling along a nearby road, new research shows. The findings raise doubts that materials pulled last year from the ocean are alien materials from that meteor, as was widely reported.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

All modern Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest malaria parasite in humans, are descendants of one initial infection and so are very closely related, with relatively limited genetic differences. A long-standing mystery in the field has revolved around a very few locations in the P. falciparum genome where there are 'spikes' of mutations -- far more than anywhere else. Researchers have identified two genes in which these unusual mutation spikes result from DNA being copied and pasted from one gene to another.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The James Webb Space Telescope makes one of the most unexpected findings within its first year of service: A high number of faint little red dots in the distant Universe could change the way we understand the genesis of supermassive black holes.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Early experiences in an animal's life can have a significant impact on its capacity to thrive, even years or decades later, and DNA methylation may help record their effects. In a study of 256 wild baboons, researchers found that resource limitation during early life was associated with many differences in DNA methylation, a small chemical mark on the DNA sequence that can affect gene activity.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New research has found that rubisco -- the enzyme that fuels all life on Earth -- is not stuck in an evolutionary rut after all. The largest analysis of rubisco ever has found that it is improving all the time -- just very, very slowly. These insights could potentially open up new routes to strengthen food security.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Neutron star mergers are a treasure trove for new physics signals, with implications for determining the true nature of dark matter, according to physicists.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A galaxy that suddenly stopped forming new stars more than 13 billion years ago has been observed by astronomers. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a 'dead' galaxy when the universe was just 700 million years old, the oldest such galaxy ever observed.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Some of our genes can be expressed or silenced depending on whether we inherited them from our mother or our father. The mechanism behind this phenomenon, known as genomic imprinting, is determined by DNA modifications during egg and sperm production.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

'Random DNA' is naturally active in the one-celled fungi yeast, while such DNA is turned off as its natural state in mammalian cells, despite their having a common ancestor a billion years ago and the same basic molecular machinery, a new study finds.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Open any astronomy textbook to the section on white dwarf stars and you'll likely learn that they are 'dead stars' that continuously cool down over time. Astronomers are challenging this theory after discovering a population of white dwarf stars that stopped cooling for more than eight billion years.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study finds that exposure to chronic radiation from Chornobyl has not damaged the genomes of microscopic worms living there today -- which doesn't mean that the region is safe, the scientists caution, but suggests that these worms are exceptionally resilient.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Space weather experts are urging regulators and space tourism innovators to work together to protect their passengers and crews from the risks of space weather radiation exposure.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of astronomers has shed new light on the fascinating and complex process of planet formation. The research brings together observations of more than 80 young stars that might have planets forming around them, providing astronomers with a wealth of data and unique insights into how planets arise in different regions of our galaxy.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

It takes more than a galaxy merger to make a black hole grow and new stars form: machine learning shows cold gas is needed too to initiate rapid growth -- new research finds.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

NASA's Juno spacecraft has directly measured charged oxygen and hydrogen molecules from the atmosphere of one of Jupiter's largest moons, Europa. These observations provide key constraints on the potential oxygenation of its subsurface ocean.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The James Webb Space Telescope is helping scientists uncover how planets form by advancing understanding of their birthplaces and the circumstellar disks surrounding young stars. Scientists have imaged winds from an old planet-forming disk (still very young relative to the Sun) which is actively dispersing its gas content. Knowing when the gas disperses is important as it constrains the time left for nascent planets to consume the gas from their surroundings.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other functional RNA strands, while also allowing new variants of the molecule to emerge over time. These remarkable capabilities suggest the earliest forms of evolution may have occurred on a molecular scale in RNA, and also bring scientists one step closer to re-creating autonomous RNA-based life in the laboratory.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Plant biologists have uncovered an evolutionary mystery over 100 million years in the making. It turns out that sometime during the last 125 million years, tomatoes and Arabidopsis thaliana plants experienced an extreme genetic makeover. Just what happened remains unclear. But the mystery surrounds CLV3, a gene key to healthy plant growth and development.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Looking deeply into space and time, astronomers have studied the exceptionally luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years old.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

You'd probably walk past a chiton without even seeing it. These creatures often look like nothing more than another speck of seaweed on the crusty intertidal rocks. But it sees you. At least, if it's one of the species with eyes dotting its platemail shell.