Some scientists believe that the ability of animals to store memory came from a virus that infected a common ancestor hundreds of millions of years ago. đ
This study is radically changing how we view the process of evolution.
Category: evolution – Page 129
Hurricanes: Evolution, Risk Reduction, Tracking and Simulation
Dr. Frank Marks, Director of the Hurricane Research Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), discussing improved forecasting technologies.
Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador and founder of Bioquark interviews Dr. Frank D. Marks, MS, ScD, Director of Hurricane Research Division, at NOAA.
Ira Pastor comments:
Weather and climate disasters affect the worldâs population.
The total approximate cost of damages from weather and climate disasters in the U.S. alone from 1980 to 2019, is over $1.75 trillion, and a major component of that damage results from hurricanes.
Guppy Evolution Fast Forwards
The great powerful guppy can essentially evolve 10 million times faster than usual. Which could lead to humans evolving faster too leading to a biological singularity.
Although natural selection is often viewed as a slow pruning process, a dramatic new field study suggests it can sometimes shape a population as fast as a chain saw can rip through a sapling. Scientists have found that guppies moved to a predator-free environment adapted to it in a mere 4 yearsâa rate of change some 10,000 to 10 million times faster than the average rates gleaned from the fossil record. Some experts argue that the 11-year study, described in todayâs issue of Science,* may even shed light on evolutionary patterns that occur over eons.
A team led by evolutionary biologist David Reznick of the University of California, Riverside, scooped guppies from a waterfall pool brimming with predators in Trinidadâs Aripo River, then released them in a tributary where only one enemy species lurked. In as little as 4 years, male guppies in the predator-free tributary were already detectably larger and older at maturity when compared with the control population; 7 years later females were too. Guppies in the safer waters also lived longer and had fewer and bigger offspring.
The team next determined the rate of evolution for these genetic changes, using a unit called the darwin, or the proportional amount of change over time. The guppies evolved at a rate between 3700 and 45,000 darwins. For comparison, artificial-selection experiments on mice show rates of up to 200,000 darwinsâwhile most rates measured in the fossil record are only 0.1 to 1.0 darwin. âItâs further proof that evolution can be very, very fast and dynamic,â says Philip Gingerich, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. âIt can happen on a time scale thatâs as short as one generationâfrom us to our kids.â
Scientists discover new organic compounds that could have helped form the first cells
Chemists studying how life started often focus on how modern biopolymers like peptides and nucleic acids contributed, but modern biopolymers donât form easily without help from living organisms. A possible solution to this paradox is that life started using different components, and many non-biological chemicals were likely abundant in the environment. A new survey conducted by an international team of chemists from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology and other institutes from Malaysia, the Czech Republic, the U.S. and India, has found that a diverse set of such compounds easily form polymers under primitive environmental conditions, and some even spontaneously form cell-like structures.
Understanding how life started on Earth is one of the most challenging questions modern science seeks to explain. Scientists presently study modern organisms and try to see what aspects of their biochemistry are universal, and thus were probably present in the organisms from which they descended. The best guess is that life has thrived on Earth for at least 3.5 billion of Earthâs 4.5-billion-year history since the planet formed, and most scientists would say life likely began before there is good evidence for its existence. Problematically, since Earthâs surface is dynamic, the earliest traces of life on Earth have not been preserved in the geological record. However, the earliest evidence for life on Earth tells us little about what the earliest organisms were made of, or what was going on inside their cells. âThere is clearly a lot left to learn from prebiotic chemistry about how life may have arisen,â says the studyâs co-author Jim Cleaves.
A hallmark of life is evolution, and the mechanisms of evolution suggest that common traits can suddenly be displaced by rare and novel mutations which allow mutant organisms to survive better and proliferate, often replacing previously common organisms very rapidly. Paleontological, ecological and laboratory evidence suggests this occurs commonly and quickly. One example is an invasive organism like the dandelion, which was introduced to the Americas from Europe and is now a commo weed causing lawn-concerned homeowners to spend countless hours of effort and dollars to eradicate.
Geochemistry and the Origin of Life: From Extraterrestrial Processes, Chemical Evolution on Earth, Fossilized Lifeâs Records, to Natures of the Extant Life
Scientists today are quick to point out that they are still basing their models on life as we know it: Carbon-based and reliant on organic compounds and waterâŠ
In 2001, the first author (S.N.) led the publication of a book entitled âGeochemistry and the origin of lifeâ in collaboration with Dr. Andre Brack aiming to figure out geo- and astro-chemical processes essential for the emergence of life. Since then, a great number of research progress has been achieved in the relevant topics from our group and others, ranging from the extraterrestrial inputs of lifeâs building blocks, the chemical evolution on Earth with the aid of mineral catalysts, to the fossilized records of ancient microorganisms. Here, in addition to summarizing these findings for the origin and early evolution of life, we propose a new hypothesis for the generation and co-evolution of photosynthesis with the redox and photochemical conditions on the Earthâs surface. Besides these bottom-up approaches, we introduce an experimental study on the role of water molecules in the lifeâs function, focusing on the transition from live, dormant, and dead states through dehydration/hydration. Further spectroscopic studies on the hydrogen bonding behaviors of water molecules in living cells will provide important clues to solve the complex nature of life.
Keywords: building blocks, biopolymers, polymerization, extraterrestrial inputs, mineral surfaces, metabolism, photosynthesis, water, hydrogen bonding (9: 3â10)
Life is generally characterized by the following three functions [1]: metabolism: the ability to capture energy and material resources, staying away from thermodynamic equilibrium, replication: the ability to process and transmit heritable information to progeny, and compartmentalization: the ability to keep its components together and distinguish itself from the environment. These functions are operated by biopolymers such as proteins, DNAs, RNAs, and phospholipids ( Figure 1 ). Proteins are made of amino acids linked together by peptide bonds. DNAs and RNAs are made of nucleotides (composed of (deoxy)ribose and nucleobases) bound by phosphodiester linkages. Phospholipids are made of two fatty acids esterified to a glycerol phosphate molecule.
Happiness and the Evolution of Brain Size
Summary: Study reveals a new role for serotonin in the development of the human neocortex. Serotonin acts cell-extrinsically as a growth factor for basal progenitors in the developing neocortex. Researchers report placenta-driven serotonin likely contributed to the evolutionary expansion of the neocortex in humans.
Source: Max Planck Society
During human evolution, the size of the brain increased, especially in a particular part called the neocortex. The neocortex enables us to speak, dream and think. In search of the causes underlying neocortex expansion, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, together with colleagues at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, previously identified a number of molecular players. These players typically act cell-intrinsically in the so-called basal progenitors, the stem cells in the developing neocortex with a pivotal role in its expansion.
SpaceX will collaborate with Microsoft to connect Starlink broadband with Azure cloud service
Microsoft will be using Starlink broad band for their cloud services.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell announced today the company will collaborate with Microsoft to connect Starlink broadband internet satellites with Microsoftâs Azure cloud service. âOur new partnership with SpaceX Starlink will provide high-speed, low-latency satellite broadband for the new Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC),â Microsoft detailed in a press release. âSpaceX is of course the name that people immediately think of when they think of innovation and the evolution thatâs occurring to bring space technology into the 21st century,â said Tom Keane, Microsoftâs corporate vice president of Azure Global.
Starlink is SpaceXâs plan to create an internet-beaming satellite constellation in low Earth orbit to provide service globally. Primarily focused in areas where internet connection is unreliable and nonexistent. To date, SpaceX has deployed a bit over 800 satellites to orbit out of the thousands that will comprise the Starlink network. ââThe collaboration that weâre announcing today will allow us to work together to deliver new offerings for both the public and the private sector to deliver connectivity through Starlink for use on Azure,â Shotwell said in a video announcement (shown below). âWhere it makes sense, we will work with [Microsoft]: co-selling to our mutual customers, co-selling to new enterprise and future customers.â
Shotwell shared that over the last few months SpaceX and Microsoft have been testing the software and hardware needed to connect the Starlink satellites in orbit to the Azure cloud service. -âSo, I think thatâs worked out really well,â she said. The partnership will enable Microsoft to offer its cloud service in remote areas around the planet. âWe can connect via satellite lengths any element on the Earth to another point on the Earth, which I think goes extremely well with the technologies you are trying to build outâŠâ Shotwell told Keane.
CRISPR-induced immune diversification in host-virus populations
Just like humans, microbes have equipped themselves with tools to recognize and defend themselves against viral invaders. In a continual evolutionary battle between virus and host, CRISPR-Cas act as a major driving force of strain diversity in host-virus systems.
A new study led by Professor of Life Sciences Shai Pilosof (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel), Professor of Microbiology Rachel Whitaker (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Professor of Ecology and Evolution Mercedes Pascual (University of Chicago) highlights the role of diversified immunity in mediating host-pathogen interactions and its eco-evolutionary dynamics. The study also included Professor of Bioengineering and Bliss Faculty Scholar Sergei Maslov (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Sergio A. AlcalÂŽa-Corona (University of Chicago), and Ph.D. graduate students Ted Kim and Tong Wang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign).
Their findings were reported in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Using math to study paintings to learn more about the evolution of art history
A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in Korea and one in Estonia has found a way to use math to study paintings to learn more about the evolution of art history in the western world. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes how they scanned thousands of paintings and then used mathematical algorithms to find commonalities between them over time.
Beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholderâand so it is also with art. Two people looking at the same painting can walk away with vastly different impressions. But art also serves, the researchers contend, as a barometer for visualizing the emotional tone of a given society. This suggests that the study of art history can serve as a channel of sortsâilluminating societal trends over time. The researchers further note that to date, most studies of art history have been qualitatively based, which has led to interpretive results. To overcome such bias, the researchers with this new effort looked to mathematics to see if it might be useful in uncovering features of paintings that have been overlooked by human scholars.
The work involved digitally scanning 14,912 paintingsâall of which (except for two) were painted by Western artists. The data for each of the paintings was then sent through a mathematical algorithm that drew partitions on the digital images based on contrasting colors. The researchers ran the algorithm on each painting multiple times, each time creating more partitions. As an example, the first run of the algorithm might have simply created two partitions on a paintingâeverything on land, and everything in the sky. The second might have split the land into buildings in one partition and farmland in another.
High fructose intake may drive aggressive behaviors, ADHD, bipolar
The research, out today from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and published in * Evolution and Human Behavior*, presents a hypothesis supporting a role for fructose, a component of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and uric acid (a fructose metabolite), in increasing the risk for these behavioral disorders.
Johnson outlines research that shows a foraging response stimulates risk taking, impulsivity, novelty seeking, rapid decision making, and aggressiveness to aid the securing of food as a survival response. Overactivation of this process from excess sugar intake may cause impulsive behavior that could range from ADHD, to bipolar disorder or even aggression.â âJohnson notes, âWe do not blame aggressive behavior on sugar, but rather note that it may be one contributor.ââ âThe identification of fructose as a risk factor does not negate the importance of genetic, familial, physical, emotional and environmental factors that shape mental health,â he adds.
Huh, want to know more.
âNew research suggests that conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome (ADHD), bipolar disorder, and even aggressive behaviors may be linked with sugar intake, and that it may have an evolutionary basis.
The research, out today from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and published in Evolution and Human Behavior, presents a hypothesis supporting a role for fructose, a component of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and uric acid (a fructose metabolite), in increasing the risk for these behavioral disorders.
âWe present evidence that fructose, by lowering energy in cells, triggers a foraging response similar to what occurs in starvation,â said lead author Richard Johnson, MD, professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.