Ancestors of land plants were wired to make the leap to shore

When the algal ancestor of modern land plants first succeeded in making the transition from aquatic environments to an inhospitable shore 450 million years ago, it changed the world by dramatically altering climate and setting ...

How bird evolution swapped snouts for beaks

Birds are among the most successful creatures on the planet, with more than 10,000 species living across the globe, occupying a dizzying array of niches and eating everything from large animals to hard-to-open nuts and seeds.

Chance determines cell death or normal sugar consumption

Some cells fail by chance, and not due to a genetic defect, to properly initiate the molecular processes for the breakdown of sugar. These cells are unable to grow and subsequently die. This discovery was done by a multidisciplinary ...

Typhoid Mary case may be cracked, a century later

When Typhoid Mary died in 1938, in medical exile on a tiny New York island, she took untold numbers of Salmonella typhi to her grave. No one knew how the bacteria managed to thrive and not kill her.

Leaf cutter ants inspire powerful new anti-cancer drugs

(Phys.org) —Scientists at the University of East Anglia are developing a new class of anti-cancer drugs that are not only powerful but also circumvent a primary cause of resistance to chemotherapy.

Genetic switches play big role in human evolution

(Phys.org) —A Cornell study offers further proof that the divergence of humans from chimpanzees some 4 million to 6 million years ago was profoundly influenced by mutations to DNA sequences that play roles in turning genes ...

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