Science magazine reveals the single gene change that gave Homo sapiens sapiens the edge in brain matter over Homo sapiens neanderthalensis:
… Read the rest “Genetic finding shows how modern humans grew more brain cells than Neanderthals.”[Wieland Huttner, a Max Planck Institute neurobiologist,]
Science Daily reports on an Italian study that found something in common between human brains and the brains of two different species of the unusually intelligent invertebrate the octopus… Read the rest “Octopus brains and human brains have “jumping genes” in common.”
BBC reports on a study reassembling the genome of a man and woman preserved for centuries under the ash of Pompeii, and what the ancient DNA can teach us today:
… Read the rest “Reading the DNA from Pompeii”The two people were first discovered
Science News takes us back 4,500 years to ancient Syria, where domesticated donkeys and wild asses called “hemippes” were bred together for war – as the earliest know… Read the rest “The first hybrid humans ever bred was a kunga.”
The Verge has one of the most potentially confusing science stories in a while. Gene Roddenberry’s estate, they report, has rendered the Star Trek creator’s autograph as … Read the rest “Gene Roddenberry’s autograph in bacterial DNA sold as an NFT, displayed at Art Basel.”
Science magazine looks at a mini-brain in a mini-jar – a cluster of stem cells coaxed into forming an “organoid,” a clump of cells that start taking on the functions of… Read the rest “Brain-cell clusters can mimic a newborn’s brain.”
AP News is reporting that America has caught up with Scotland in the clone wars. They cloned Dolly the Sheep, and now we’ve cloned an endangered black-footed ferret using DNA from … Read the rest “America is cloning ferrets.”
As most folks know, today’s English bulldog is an animal that has been, as they say, “overbred.” They have beautiful temperaments as a rule, and can barely breathe, … Read the rest “Science Art: Leavitt Bulldog body diagram, 2013”
LiveScience answers that question: because a female mole’s underground life is brutal:
… Read the rest “Why do female moles grow testicles?”Just like a more typical mammalian ovary, ovotestes nurture and release eggs for fertilization.
Science magazine takes focus on a new form of microscopy, using DNA like a microscope to look inside cells:
… Read the rest “Using DNA to take snapshots of cells”To make the DNA microscope, postdoc Joshua Weinstein of the Broad Institute of
Science reveals the results of a massive genetic study of Viking remains across Europe, which found that people from all genetic backgrounds took up the Viking way:
… Read the rest “DNA study confirms: “Viking” was a job, not an ethnicity.”Over the course of almost
Nature produces one more clue that if any prehistoric “cave men” were the tough, insensitive brutes, it was our ancestors. Neanderthals, a new gene study has determined, … Read the rest “Neanderthals were more sensitive to pain.”
CNN covers an odd project, using Svante Paabo’s reconstructed Neanderthal genome and European stem-cell banks to recreate mini-brain cell-clusters that are up to 20% Neanderthal… Read the rest “Growing Neanderthal brains in the lab (using European stem cells).”
The New York Times looks at two different batches of genetic data which both indicate that shutting down travel from China didn’t actually affect the spread of the virus in New York,… Read the rest “New York’s coronavirus outbreak came from Europe, not China.”
You know, I went looking for some non-coronavirus science news, and Nature provided this gem of a headline about a plucky Drosophilia fruit-fly species and its unusual infatuation with… Read the rest “Nature: “How a fly came to love the vomit fruit””
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