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Categories: Biology: General, Biology: Genetics

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Researchers investigated how the jaw shape of sharks has changed over the course of evolution. Their conclusion: in the most widespread shark species, the jaws show relatively little variation in shape over millions of years; most variable jaws were found for deep-sea sharks.

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Under certain circumstances, a rare tropical plant develops into a carnivore. A research team has now deciphered the mechanism responsible for this.

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Despite their intimidating appearance, the giant yellow and blue-black spiders spreading across the Southeastern U.S. owe their survival to a surprising trait: They're rather timid. The Joro spider may be the shyest spider ever documented.

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The deadly hospital pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii can live for a year on a hospital wall without food and water. Then, when it infects a vulnerable patient, it resists antibiotics as well as the body's built-in infection-fighting response. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes it as one of the three top pathogens in critical need of new antibiotic therapies. Now, an international team, led by Macquarie University researchers Dr. Ram Maharjan and Associate Professor Amy Cain, have discovered how the superbug can survive harsh environments and then rebound, causing deadly infections. They have found a single protein that acts as a master regulator. When the protein is damaged, the bug loses its superpowers allowing it to be controlled, in a lab setting. The research is published this month in Nucleic Acids Research.

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Individual fish in schools scatter in unison when a predator is in their midst. Such precisely coordinated group movements and immobility during threats have long been observed in insects and mammals. Now, a brain pathway has been discovered that enables individual animals to rapidly coordinate a unified response, with no rehearsal required.

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Researchers have mapped out what a commonly-used form of phage looks like, which will help design better uses in future.

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Inspired by clam fishermen reports, researchers used passive acoustic telemetry to gauge the interactions between two highly mobile rays. They monitored the tagged rays in the wild over two years to see how often and when they visited clam leases, designated underwater locations used to produce hard clams of all sizes from littlenecks to chowders. Results provide both good news and bad news for clammers. Rays spent even more time in these clam lease sites than clammers reported or suspected, but it's not necessarily where they prefer hanging out.

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There's something most species -- from baboons to humans to horses -- have in common: When they suffer serious adversity early in life, they're more likely to experience hardship later on in life.

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Scientists have discovered where butterflies originated and which plants the first butterflies relied on for food. To reach these conclusions, researchers created the world's largest butterfly tree of life, which they used as a guide to trace trace the evolution of butterflies through time in a four-dimensional puzzle that led back to North and Central America.

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Scientists have precisely identified base pairs of the human genome that remained consistent over millions of years of mammalian evolution, and which play a crucial role in human disease. The team analyzed the genomes of 240 mammals, including humans and identified base pairs that were 'constrained' -- meaning they remained generally consistent -- across mammal species over the course of evolution. The most constrained base pairs in mammals were over seven times more likely to be causal for human disease and complex trait, and over 11 times more likely when researchers looked at the most constrained base pairs in primates alone.

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Researchers have examined a specific type of stem cell with an intracellular toolkit to determine which cells are most likely to create effective cell therapies.

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A new study pinpoints 10 bacterial groups associated with Alzheimer's disease, provides new insights into the relationship between gut makeup and dementia.

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A new group of mitochondrial viruses confined to the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi Glomeromycotina may represent an ancestral lineage of mitoviruses.

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Much of what is now considered modern medicine originated as folk remedies or traditional, Indigenous practices. These customs are still alive today, and they could help address a variety of conditions. Now, researchers have identified compounds in the leaves of a particular medicinal Labrador tea plant used throughout the First Nations of Nunavik, Canada, and demonstrated that one of them has activity against the parasite responsible for malaria.

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Researchers are working to identify genes that influence horses' tendency to react to perceived danger.

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Bacteria can rapidly evolve resistance to antibiotics by adapting special pumps to flush them out of their cells, according to new research. Antimicrobial resistance is a growing problem of global significance. The rise of resistant 'superbugs' threatens our ability to use antimicrobials like antibiotics to treat and prevent the spread of infections caused by microorganisms. It is hoped that the findings will improve how antibiotics are used to help prevent further spread of antimicrobial resistance.

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Throughout the ocean, billions upon billions of plant-like microbes make up an invisible floating forest. As they drift, the tiny organisms use sunlight to suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Collectively, these photosynthesizing plankton, or phytoplankton, absorb almost as much CO2 as the world’s terrestrial forests. A measurable fraction of their carbon-capturing muscle comes from Prochlorococcus — an emerald-tinged free-floater that is the most abundant phytoplankton in the oceans today. New research suggests the microbe's ancient coastal ancestors colonized the ocean by rafting out on chitin particles.

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A new study finds that early human species adapted to mosaic landscapes and diverse food resources, which would have increased our ancestor's resilience to past shifts in climate.

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Scalloped hammerhead sharks hold their breath to keep their bodies warm during deep dives into cold water where they hunt prey such as deep sea squids. This discovery provides important new insights into the physiology and ecology of a species that serves as an important link between the deep and shallow water habitats.

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There have been heated debates over the size of Jurassic animals. The speculation was set to continue, but now a chance discovery in an Oxfordshire museum has led to palaeontologists publishing a paper on a Jurassic species potentially reaching a whopping 14.4 meters -- twice the size of a killer whale.