Group items tagged

Despite existing for hundreds of years, the science of classification is far from dead. Classification of many species, old and new, continues to be hotly disputed as scientists find new information or interpret facts in new ways. Arguments are fierce and species do change names, but only after a wealth of information has been gathered to support such a big step. One of the new reasons why species are being re-evaluated is because of DNA analysis.

Lyme disease, Ebola and malaria all developed in animals before making the leap to infect humans. Predicting when such a 'zoonotic' disease will spark an outbreak remains difficult, but a new study suggests that artificial intelligence could give these efforts a boost. A computer model that incorporates machine learning can pinpoint, with 90% accuracy, rodent species that are known to harbour pathogens that can spread to humans, researchers report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. The model also identified more than 150 species that are likely to be disease reservoirs but have yet to be confirmed as such.

Scientists have cloned the first U.S. endangered species, a black-footed ferret duplicated from the genes of an animal that died over 30 years ago.

In the closing sentence of "The Origin of Species," Charles Darwin marvels at the process of evolution, observing how "from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." Few people would describe bedbugs as most beautiful or most wonderful. Yet this blood-feeding pest may represent an exceptional chance to observe the emergence of Darwin's "endless forms": New research indicates that some bedbugs are well on their way to becoming a new species.

The origins of the species known as 'the hobbit' - a human relative only a little over a metre tall - have been debated ever since its discovery in 2004. Now new fossils may reveal the ancestors of this strange species and help us to understand its history.

The animal in question was a species of tardigrade, a microscopic creature sometimes referred to as a "water bear" that is perhaps the hardiest lifeform on Earth. There are over1,000 known species, all of which have eight legs and measure between 0.5 and 1.2 mm in length, and they are found more or less everywhere.

His "Photo Ark" currently houses images of more than 5,000 species, rolling past the viewer. "It would take two hours to see them all," he said. "It's supposed to just overwhelm people with what life looks like on Earth." And what might soon be extinct.

Charles is an African giant pouched rat, a species endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. He's also a pioneer, one of 30 of his species that live and work here in Morogoro, a few hundred kilometers west of Tanzania's largest city, Dar es Salaam, on a program to sniff out tuberculosis (TB).

Focusing on this species of fruit fly, he and the other researchers in the lab of molecular biologist Sean B. Carroll, had made a prolonged assault on one of the key questions in evolutionary biology: how nature endows creatures with their colorful patterns, from a leopard's dark spots to a butterfly's bold swirls. In different species the patterns serve to attract mates, provide camouflage or provide other advantages in the struggle to survive. But what causes the colors to fall so precisely into place?

An international team led by Professor Itai YanaAi of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Department of Biology made the discovery after using an extraordinarily powerful technique known as CEL-Seq. CEL-Seq monitors individual cells for their gene activity (as detected via mRNA)-and they applied it across 10 different species, with CEL-Seq being applied to 70 embryos per species. In particular, they were interested in whether the animal classification of phylum-which separates animals into groups according to their body plans-is actually a useful tool for placing animals into groups, as well as what genetic attributes are the same and different between the different phyla.

n Wednesday, it happened again. Yohannes Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and his colleagues reported finding a jaw in Ethiopia that belonged to an ancient human relative that lived some time between 3.3 and 3.5 million years. They argue that the jaw belongs to an entirely new species, which they dubbed Australopithecus deyiremeda.

Scientists discovered a new retrovirus "fossil" found in the common vampire bat which is homologous to retroviruses in rodents and primates. The results suggest the recent circulation of an active infectious retrovirus and cross-species transmission. The study has been published in the scientific journal Journal of Virology.

Scientists have discovered that the newly found Tapanuli orangutan of Sumatra is more closely related to its cousins in Borneo than it is to its fellow Sumatran apes. The Tapanuli population numbers only around 800 individuals.

As benign as it may look up close, the tiny seaweed Caulerpa taxifolia can wreak quite a bit of havoc on coastal ecosystems. This super algae is very adaptable; it also grows fast and spreads easily. Eric Noel Muñoz gives the details of this plant's incredible invasion, shedding light on the risks of introducing invasive species into new ecosystems.

7:00 video: This film is the first of a two part series on the evolution of new genetic information. Here we focus on Point Mutations - the simplest natural mechanisms known to increase the genetic information of a population. Our second film of the series will focus on duplication events - natural mutations that increase the total amount of genetic information of an individual. This film was produced under the guidance of molecular biologist Dr. Nicholas Casewell. http://www.lstmed.ac.uk/about/people/... Point mutations are small, natural edits in the DNA code of an individual. These edits can be passed from parent to child. Because they are mere edits, point mutations usually do not increase the total amount of information in an individual. As new information is gained, old information is lost. Point mutations do, however, increase the total amount of information within a population. In this film you will see several examples of beneficial point mutations which have enhanced a creatures abilities or even given rise to entirely new abilities. The first two examples were directly observed in bacteria by scientists in the lab. The third is a case found in domestic dogs, the last example was discovered in several species of wild animal.

What effects will the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology have on the conservation of nature? The ecological and ethical challenges stemming from this question will require a new and continuing dialogue between members of the synthetic biology and biodiversity conservation communities, according to authors of a new paper.

If you think of your dog as your "fur baby," science has your back. New research shows that when our canine pals stare into our eyes, they activate the same hormonal response that bonds us to human infants. The study-the first to show this hormonal bonding effect between humans and another species-may help explain how dogs became our companions thousands of years ago.

The mouse is a common model used in research as a way of studying human biology and diseases, but a new study questions whether this is an accurate approach considering some stark differences - aside from many similarities - between the two species.

As the genomes of more and more species are sequenced, geneticists are piecing together an extraordinarily detailed picture of the molecules that are fundamental to life on Earth. With modern techniques, we can not only trace how the bodies of animals have evolved, we can even identify the genetic mutations behind these changes and, as we recently reported, genes sometimes evolve in surprising ways. Here though, in celebration of the versatility of DNA, New Scientist presents five classic examples of gene evolution.

Now, a new study reports that at least one species of songbird-and likely many more-already knows how to prep its chicks for a warming world. They do so by emitting special calls to the embryos inside their eggs, which can hear and learn external sounds. This is the first time scientists have found animals using sound to affect the growth, development, behavior, and reproductive success of their offspring, and adds to a growing body of research revealing that birds can "doctor" their eggs.