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Categories: Biology: Evolutionary, Offbeat: Earth and Climate

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A new family tree of the plant genus Solanum helps explain the striking diversity of their fruit color and size. This genus includes tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and other economically important plants.

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Some 1,000 years ago, a small band of Polynesians sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific to settle one of the world's most isolated places -- a small, previously uninhabited island they named Rapa Nui. Eventually, their numbers ballooned to unsustainable levels, they wrecked the environment, and their civilization collapsed. At least that is the longtime story, told in academic studies and popular books. A new study challenges this narrative of 'ecocide' saying that Rapa Nui's population never spiraled to unsustainable levels.

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A new dinosaur has been identified and named. The dinosaur's name, Lokiceratops rangiformis, translates roughly to 'Loki's horned face that looks like a caribou.'

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New strains of yeast for brewing lager beers, created by hybridizing wild strains of yeast from Patagonia with brewer's yeast, can yield novel flavors and aromas, researchers report.

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Researchers have discovered that plants benefit from a greater variety of interactions with pollinators and herbivores. Plants that are pollinated by insects and have to defend themselves against herbivores have evolved to be better adapted to different types of soil.

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Formation of the body axes is a critical part of embryonic development. They guarantee that all body parts end up where they belong and that no ears grow on our backs. The head-tail axis, for example, determines the orientation of the two ends of the body. It was previously assumed that this axis is largely determined by the interplay between the Nodal and BMP signals. However, there appears to be another player in this system, as researchers have now discovered by using an embryo-like model system they developed. In the absence of BMP, the signalling molecule beta-catenin takes on the role of the Nodal antagonist. This new mechanism could be a flexible solution for axis formation in embryos with different shapes.

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Newfound evidence reveals that the upsurge of the exotic Nile perch in Lake Victoria had long-lasting effects on the genetic diversity of various local cichlid species, report scientists. Through large-scale comparative genomic analyses, the researchers found concrete proof in the collective genome of multiple species that this artificially introduced perch decimated many local fish populations, causing a 'bottleneck effect.'

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Researchers hope their DIY machine will help designers around the world experiment with making their own, sustainable fashion and other textiles from a range of natural ingredients -- maybe even the chitin in crab shells or agar-agar from algae.

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Using genome reconstruction, scientists unveiled a once 'invisible' fish parasite present in many marine fish world-wide that belongs to the apicomplexans, one of the most important groups of parasites at a clinical level. However, it had gone unnoticed in previous studies. The parasite is geographically and taxonomically widespread in fish species around the planet, with implications for commercial fishing and oceanic food webs.

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An international team of scientists has identified the oldest fossil of a sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere -- a nothosaur vertebra found on New Zealand's South Island. 246 million years ago, at the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs, New Zealand was located on the southern polar coast of a vast super-ocean called Panthalassa. 'The nothosaur found in New Zealand is over 40 million years older than the previously oldest known sauropterygian fossils from the Southern Hemisphere.

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A decade-long study has discovered huge genetic potential that is untapped in modern wheat varieties.

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Researchers have discovered new insights into the human heart's structure, revealing its evolutionary history. This study enhances understanding of heart development and its implications for treating heart disease.

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In mammals, only 3% of the genome consists of coding genes which, when transcribed into proteins, ensure the biological functions of the organism and the in-utero development of future individuals. But genes do not function alone. They are controlled by other sequences in the genome, called enhancers, which, like switches, activate or deactivate them as required. A team has now identified and located 2700 enhancers -- among millions of non-coding genetic sequences -- that precisely regulate the genes responsible for bone growth. This discovery sheds light on one of the major factors influencing the size of individuals in adulthood, and explains why their failure could be the cause of certain bone malformations.

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An international research team has uncovered a new insight into human evolution by comparing humans' hearts with those of other great apes.

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Climate change is making it more difficult to raise cattle -- growth and reproduction are affected by heat -- so it's critical to breed cattle better adapted to a hotter and longer summer. A new study shows it's possible to identify the genes within breeds of cattle that would lead to the sweatiest, heat-tolerant offspring.

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The new study provides unambiguous evidence that the inner core began to decrease its speed around 2010, moving slower than the Earth's surface.

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Some species of tardigrades are highly and unusually resilient to various extreme conditions fatal to most other forms of life. The genetic basis for these exceptional abilities remains elusive. Researchers have now successfully edited genes using the CRISPR technique in a highly resilient tardigrade species previously impossible to study with genome-editing tools. The successful delivery of CRISPR to an asexual tardigrade species directly produces gene-edited offspring. The design and editing of specific tardigrade genes allow researchers to investigate which are responsible for tardigrade resilience and how such resilience can work.

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Paleontologists have identified a new genus of fossil goby, revealing evolutionary secrets of a lineage that stretches back millions of years.

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Climate change has many widespread and complicated effects on the well-being of people and the planet, and a new study has now added a surprising one to the list. After analyzing the language used in seven million parliamentary speeches around the world, it shows that high temperatures lead to a significant and immediate reduction in politicians' language complexity.

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Scientists have for the first time observed how atoms in magnesium oxide morph and melt under ultra-harsh conditions, providing new insights into this key mineral within Earth's mantle that is known to influence planet formation.