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Category: evolution – Page 60

The astonishing discovery is “important for the understanding of evolutionary processes because generation times could be stretched from days to millennia, and long-term survival of individuals of species can lead to the refoundation of otherwise extinct lineages,” according to a study published on Thursday in the journal PLoS Genetics.

“Their evolution was literally suspended for 40k years,” wrote Philipp Schiffer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Cologne and a co-author of the study, in an email to Motherboard.

“We are now comparing them to species from the same genus, which my team samples around the world,” he continued, noting that he is currently conducting fieldwork in the Australian Outback. “Studying their genomes we hope to understand a lot about how these populations became different in the last 40k years.”

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Opinion Piece. What’s your opinion?

The social media platform formerly known as Twitter has gone through another remarkable evolution thanks to owner Elon Musk. The platform is now called “X” and is even sporting a brand spanking new logo. The blue bird has taken its last flight and the site seems poised to bring its users into the next venture in the Muskverse.

But not everyone has been happy with the changes Musk has made since taking over the company. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) recently went after Musk for the supposed harassment she receives on the platform. It seems that since the day he bought the social media company, he has been making leftists’ heads explode, and AOC is far from an exception in claiming she “never experienced more harassment on this platform” than she does now. She also claimed people “now pay to give their harassment more visibility.”

Musk responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism of the platform’s safety measures with in quintessential Shakespearian fashion: “Methinks somebody doth protest too much.” Yet this is just the latest in a long line of diatribes the lawmaker has levied against the X owner. And while it is hard to believe the claims of someone who once faked being handcuffed while protesting during a pro-abortion demonstration, the question is worth exploring: Is Twitter, now X, better off under Musk than it was before?

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Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs)—small peptides that protect against microbial infection—are crucial immune effectors in both plants and animals. They not only fight against potential infections, they also influence the composition of the host’s microbiome. Little is known about the driving forces behind AMPs’ rapid evolution. Now, a study uncovers the selective pressures driving the evolution of AMPs and how they control bacteria in the host’s microbiome.

The work is published in Science in the paper, “Ecology-relevant bacteria drive the evolution of host antimicrobial peptides in Drosophila.”

The researchers focused on Diptericin (Dpt), a small antimicrobial peptide that mainly defends Drosophila against Gram-negative bacteria. The team examined how Diptericins function in Drosophila and evolve in response to their microbial environment.

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Scientists adding a human intelligence gene into monkeys — it’s the kind of thing you’d see in a movie like Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But Chinese researchers have done just that, improving the short-term memories of the monkeys in a study published in March 2019 in the Chinese journal National Science Review. While some experts downplayed the effects as minor, concerns linger over where the research may lead.

The goal of the work, led by geneticist Bing Su of Kunming Institute of Zoology, was to investigate how a gene linked to brain size, MCPH1, might contribute to the evolution of the organ in humans. All primates have some variation of this gene. However, compared with other primates, our brains are larger, more advanced and slower to develop; the researchers wondered whether differences that evolved in the human version of MCPH1 might explain our more complex brains.

Article from 2019

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/6/3/480/5420749

Other scientists are concerned and ethical questions linger over where the research on brain genes may lead.

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There’s an old joke among astronomy students about a question on the final exam for a cosmology class. It goes like this: “Describe the Universe and give three examples.” Well, a team of researchers in Germany, the U.S., and the UK took a giant leap toward giving at least one accurate example of the Universe.

To do it, they used a set of simulations called “MillenniumTNG”. It traces the buildup of galaxies and cosmic structure across time. It also provides new insight into the standard cosmological model of the Universe. It’s the latest in cosmological simulations, joining such ambitious efforts as the AbacusSummit project of a couple of years ago.

This simulation project takes into account as many aspects of cosmic evolution as possible. It uses simulations of regular (baryonic) matter (which is what we see in the Universe). It also includes dark matter, neutrinos, and the still-mysterious dark energy on the formation mechanisms of the Universe. That’s a tall order.

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Observations made by NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.” Its core values are “safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion.” NASA conducts research, develops technology and launches missions to explore and study Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. It also works to advance the state of knowledge in a wide range of scientific fields, including Earth and space science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, and it collaborates with private companies and international partners to achieve its goals.

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The discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012 represented a major turning point for particle physics marking the completion of what is known as the standard model of particle physics. Yet, the standard model can’t answer every question in physics, thus, since this discovery at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) physicists have searched for physics beyond the standard model and to determine what shape future physics will take.

A paper in The European Physical Journal H by Robert Harlander and Jean-Philippe Martinez of the Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology, RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and Gregor Schiemann from the Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany, considers the idea that particle physics may be on the verge of a new era of discovery and understanding in particle physics. The paper also considers the implications of the many possible scenarios for the future of high-energy physics.

“Over the last century, the concept of the particle has emerged as fundamental in the field of physics,” Martinez said. “It has undergone a significant evolution across time, which has opened up new ways for particle observation, and thus for the discovery of new particles. Currently, observing a particle requires its on-shell production.”

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The James Webb Space Telescope has detected the earliest-known carbon dust in a galaxy ever.

Using the powerful space telescope, a team of astronomers spotted signs of the element that forms the backbone of all life in ten different galaxies that existed as early as 1 billion years after the Big Bang.

The detection of carbon dust so soon after the Big Bang could shake up theories surrounding the chemical evolution of the universe. This is because the processes that create and disperse heavier elements like this should take longer to build up in galaxies than the age of these young galaxies at the time the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) sees them.

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