Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: evolution – Page 19

Every cell is beholden to a phenomenon called cell fate, a sort of biological preset determined by genetic coding. Burgeoning cells take their developmental cues from a set of core genetic instructions that shape their structure and function and how they interact with other cells in the body.

To you or me, it’s biological law. But to a group of researchers at Stanford Medicine, it’s more of a suggestion. Unconstrained by the rules of evolution, these scientists are instead governed by a question: What if?

What if you could eat a vaccine? Or create a bacterium that could also detect and attack cancer? What if furniture could grow from a seed?

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The human brain’s remarkably prolonged development is unique among mammals and is thought to contribute to our advanced learning abilities. Disruptions in this process may explain certain neurodevelopmental diseases.

Now, a team of researchers led by Prof. Pierre Vanderhaeghen (VIB-KU Leuven), together with scientists of Columbia University and Ecole Normale Supérieure has discovered a link between two genes, present only in human DNA, and a key gene called SYNGAP1, which is mutated in intellectual disability and .

Their study, published in Neuron, provides a surprisingly direct link between human brain evolution and neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Scientists found living microbes in a 2-billion-year-old rock in South Africa, providing insights into early life on Earth and potentially aiding the search for life on Mars.

Researchers have discovered pockets of living microbes within a sealed fracture of a 2-billion-year-old rock from the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa, an area known for its rich ore deposits. This is the oldest example of living microbes found within ancient rock to date.

To confirm that the microbes were indigenous to the ancient core sample and not caused by contamination during the retrieval and study process, the research team refined a technique they previously developed involving three types of imaging – infrared spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and fluorescent microscopy. These microbes could provide novel insights into the early evolution of life, and aid the search for extraterrestrial life in similarly aged rock samples brought back from Mars.

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Researchers have developed a Martian atmospheric evolution model to propose a new theory about Mars’s past. Although Mars is currently a cold, dry planet, geological evidence suggests that liquid water existed there around 3 to 4 billion years ago. Where there is water, there is usually life. In their quest to answer the burning question about life on Mars, researchers at Tohoku University created a detailed model of organic matter production in the ancient Martian atmosphere.

Organic matter refers to the remains of living things such as plants and animals, or the byproduct of certain chemical reactions.

Whatever the case, the stable carbon isotope ratio (13C/12C) found in organic matter provides valuable clues about how these building blocks of life were originally formed, giving scientists a window into the past.

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Snails on a tiny rocky islet evolved before scientists’ eyes. The marine snails were reintroduced after a toxic algal bloom wiped them out from the skerry. While the researchers intentionally brought in a distinct population of the same snail species, these evolved to strikingly resemble the population lost over 30 years prior.

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“The isotope values of these carbonates point toward extreme amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water,” said Dr. David Burtt.

Was the planet Mars ever habitable and what conditions led to it becoming the uninhabitable world we see today? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of researchers from the United States and Canada investigated how carbonate minerals found within Gale Crater on Mars could help paint a clearer picture of past conditions on the Red Planet and whether it was habitable. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of Mars and whether it once had the necessary conditions to support life as we know it.

Studying carbonate minerals is important due to their ability to tell scientists how a climate formed and evolved over time, with these carbonate minerals containing large amounts of carbon and oxygen isotopes, specifically Carbon-13 and Oxygen-18, which the study notes is the highest amount of these isotopes identified on the Red Planet. Carbon-13 and Oxygen-18 are known as environmental isotopes, which are used to better understand the interactions between a planet’s ocean and atmosphere and how life could exist. While Earth is the only known planet to support life, studying these isotopes on Mars could help scientists better understand if life could have formed on Mars long ago.

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