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Art for "New Squid Genome Shines Light on Symbiotic Evolution"
evolution

New Squid Genome Shines Light on Symbiotic Evolution

By Laura Poppick
February 19, 2019
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Researchers hope that the genes of a glowing squid can illuminate how animals evolved organs for beneficial bacteria.

Art for "How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past"
neuroscience

How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past

By Jordana Cepelewicz
February 12, 2019
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The brain can’t directly encode the passage of time, but recent work hints at a workaround for putting timestamps on memories of events.

A row of skulls ending with homo sapiens, foreground, found at The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Human Origins.
Abstractions blog

Artificial Intelligence Finds Ancient ‘Ghosts’ in Modern DNA

By Jordana Cepelewicz
February 7, 2019
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With the help of deep learning techniques, paleoanthropologists find evidence of long-lost branches on the human family tree.

Art for "Fragile DNA Enables New Adaptations to Evolve Quickly"
evolution

Fragile DNA Enables New Adaptations to Evolve Quickly

By Viviane Callier
February 5, 2019
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If highly repetitive gene-regulating sequences in DNA are easily lost, that may explain why some adaptations evolve quickly and repeatedly.

Photo of the female penis structure of the cave insect Neotrogla aurora.
Abstractions blog

Why Evolution Reversed These Insects’ Sex Organs

By Jordana Cepelewicz
January 30, 2019
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Among these cave insects, the females evolved to have penises — twice. The reasons challenge common assumptions about sex.

Abstractions blog

Gene Drives Work in Mice (if They’re Female)

By John Rennie +1 authors
Jordana Cepelewicz
January 23, 2019
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Biologists have demonstrated for the first time that a controversial genetic engineering technology works, with caveats, in mammals.

Art for "How Nearby Stellar Explosions Could Have Killed Off Large Animals"
Abstractions blog

How Nearby Stellar Explosions Could Have Killed Off Large Animals

By Rebecca Boyle
January 15, 2019
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Subatomic particles called muons are thought to have streamed through the atmosphere and irradiated megafauna like the monster shark megalodon.

Art for "The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces"
neuroscience

The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces

By Jordana Cepelewicz
January 14, 2019
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Emerging evidence suggests that the brain encodes abstract knowledge in the same way that it represents positions in space, which hints at a more universal theory of cognition.

Abstractions blog

Jellyfish Genome Hints That Complexity Isn’t Genetically Complex

By Jonathan Lambert
January 8, 2019
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Jellyfish didn’t need novel genes to take an evolutionary leap in complexity.


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