Related topics: genes · cells · species · birds · plants

Breaking up is hard to do (especially for sex chromosomes)

As chromosomes go, X and Y make an unlikely pair. The X is large and contains thousands of genes critical for life. The Y, by contrast, is little more than a nub. Its main purpose is to provide the instructions for initiating ...

Sex as stress management in microbes

Why is sex so popular? The question of why so many organisms reproduce sexually has mystified evolutionary biologists since before Darwin, who wrote, "The whole subject is as yet hidden in darkness." In a recent article in ...

Unraveling one of prion disease's deadly secrets

A molecular biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has for decades studied the nightmarish group of fatal diseases caused by prions—chronic wasting disease in deer, mad cow in cattle and its human analog—credits ...

Predators help prey adapt to an uncertain future

What effect does extinction of species have on the evolution of surviving species? Evolutionary biologists have investigated this question by conducting a field experiment with a leaf galling fly and its predatory enemies. ...

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