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Evolution news
Discovery of CRISPR's long lost ancestor may expand gene-editing toolkit
CRISPR may be a powerful technology for gene editing, but the system existed in bacteria long before scientists began using it. For billions of years, CRISPR has acted as a natural immune system in bacteria and other microbes, ...
Why high levels of the amino acid cysteine are toxic to cells
Cysteine is one of the main building blocks that cells use to make proteins. But this amino acid is a double-edged sword—too much cysteine is toxic to the cell. Cells therefore keep free cysteine levels to a minimum, converting ...
Evolution
Sep 18, 2026
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Moles' wide-armed posture reshapes how their shoulder bones carry loads
While the scapula is the primary bone supporting the body in terrestrial quadrupedal mammals, an analysis of internal bone structure in underground moles (family Talpidae) showed a more important role for the clavicle.
Plants & Animals
Sep 17, 2026
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Endurance running or endurance diving—which came first?
A new study combines paleoanthropology and diving physiology to address a fundamental question in human evolution: Why did humans evolve their exceptional aerobic endurance? Did our ancestors begin endurance running to exhaust ...
Evolution
Sep 17, 2026
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Why do some chimpanzee mothers carry their dead infants for months?
Chimpanzee and bonobo mothers sometimes continue to carry their infants after they have died, a behavior known as infant corpse carrying (ICC). It is widely documented, and many explanations have been proposed, but few have ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 16, 2026
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Bone strength study reveals new clues about human evolution
Bipedalism, or walking on two legs, is one of the key features that distinguishes humans from other apes. But when and why our ancestors transitioned from a life often spent in trees to a life spent almost exclusively on ...
Evolution
Sep 16, 2026
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225
Half-billion-year-old fossils rewrite the origin story of starfish
Scientists have discovered several 518-million-year-old fossils that reshape understanding of the origins of the animal group containing starfish. The fossils show that these animals ate using tentacles rather than passively ...
Evolution
Sep 16, 2026
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121
Chimpanzees give youngsters the tools to learn tricky techniques
Two-thirds of a century after Jane Goodall observed "David Greybeard" break off a twig to fashion a fishing rod for termites, researchers following in her footsteps have found that adult chimpanzees in Senegal literally hand ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 16, 2026
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New species of 240-million-year-old prehistoric animal could reshape dinosaur origins timeline
A new prehistoric animal species from Tanzania dating to around 240 million years ago, during the Triassic period, has been described by an international team of researchers. Led by the University of Bristol, the new species, ...
Evolution
Sep 15, 2026
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Radiation-tolerant rotifers rebuild broken chromosomes over successive generations
DNA repair mechanisms are essential for maintaining the integrity of our genome. When they malfunction, they can cause disease or contribute to the development of cancer. Nature, however, offers remarkable examples of organisms ...
Evolution
Sep 14, 2026
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Antibody cocktails could steer viruses into evolutionary dead ends
When a virus mutates, the world usually finds out the hard way. Variants of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 can slip past vaccines and antibody drugs before scientists fully understand what has changed. A new study from Harvard's ...
Evolution
Sep 14, 2026
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The surprising history of woolly rhinos: They weren't always creatures of the frozen north
Woolly rhinoceroses (Coelodonta antiquitatis) were fascinating creatures: giant, lumbering Ice Age beasts with thick fur and massive horns that died out about 11,000 years ago. Previous genetic studies had left open the question ...
Evolutionary home advantage: Field experiment reveals adaptation to be surprisingly local
A research team from the University of Bern has shown in a large-scale field experiment that populations of the same fish species can be much more fine-tuned to their local environments than previously thought. Habitats that ...
Evolution
Sep 14, 2026
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Brain's ability to hear a musical beat remains distinctly human, study suggests
The seemingly trivial ability to hear a regular pulse in music is a remarkable—and perhaps distinctively human—feature of the brain. In a wide-ranging critical review, Gábor Háden of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 11, 2026
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Chihuahua dogs are part coyote—this might help explain their 'small but mighty' reputation
It turns out that one of the smallest dog breeds, the Chihuahua, is part wild coyote, according to recently published genetic research. The Chihuahua breed originated in Mexico but is now a popular canine companion worldwide.
Evolution
Sep 11, 2026
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102
Uniting sequence and structure to map the protein universe across billions of years of evolution
An international team of researchers, including those at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Institute of Science Tokyo, has developed a protein language model that brings together two fundamental sources of information ...
Evolution
Sep 11, 2026
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New analysis reconstructs the dawn of dinosaurs and other reptiles
About 252 million years ago, at the end of the Permian Period, a large proportion of species on Earth rapidly became extinct. After this mass extinction, many groups of organisms began to recover, while reptiles known as ...
How sex with multiple mates can help save species from extinction
Allowing females to mate with multiple males, rather than just one, could help make species more resistant to extinction, University of East Anglia research shows. A new study reveals that when females have multiple males ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 10, 2026
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Fossil flowers of ancient lianas preserved in amber reveal the evolution of tropical rainforests
Tiny flowers trapped in amber around 15 million years ago are offering scientists a rare glimpse into the plant life of a tropical rainforest in what is now Southeast China. Researchers have studied two exceptionally well-preserved ...
Evolution
Sep 10, 2026
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A fossil feather preserved inside dinosaur poop could help explain why birds survived the mass extinction
About 66 million years ago, a dinosaur—maybe a T. rex or a Nanotyrannus—ate a bird. The record of that meal, in the form of fossilized poop, has survived to today, preserving the best example of a feather ever found from ...
Evolution
Sep 10, 2026
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Other news
Scientists teleport quantum states across 100 parallel optical channels
A 'rebellious' exoplanet orbits in the opposite direction of its star
Tiny molecular scissors reveal how crystals bend without breaking
AI-powered barcode unmasks 'zombie cells' in aging tissue
Genes that help flatworms regenerate their brains revealed
Loss of Y chromosome in men could be an early warning sign of cancer
