Biology News

Potato Evolved from Tomato Plants 8-9 Million Years Ago, New Research Suggests

Interspecific hybridization may trigger species radiation by creating allele combinations and traits. Cultivated potato and its 107 wild relatives from the Petota lineage all share the distinctive trait of underground tubers, but the underlying mechanisms for tuberization and its relationship to extensive species diversification remain unclear. Through analyses of 128 genomes, including 88 haplotype-resolved genomes, Zhang et al. revealed that Petota is of ancient hybrid origin, with all members exhibiting stable mixed genomic ancestry, derived from the Etuberosum and Tomato lineages ca. 8-9 million years ago. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.06.034.
Aug 5, 2025 by News Staff

Interbreeding between tomato plants and potato-like species from South America about 8-9 million years ago gave rise to the modern-day potato (Solanum tuberosum); this ancient evolutionary event triggered the formation of the tuber, the enlarged underground structure that stores nutrients found in plants like potatoes, yams, and taros, according to a team of biologists from China, Canada, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Interspecific...

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Studying the evolution of hibernators like some hedgehogs, bats, ground squirrels, and lemurs could reveal the secrets of their remarkable resilience. Image credit: Chrissy Richards.

Superpowers of Hibernating Animals Could Lie Hidden in Human DNA

Aug 4, 2025 by News Staff

Two new studies by University of Utah researchers provide clues on how to unlock these hibernating abilities, opening the door to someday developing treatments...

Holotype of Acrophylla alta in nature. Image credit: Ross M. Coupland.

New Species of Giant Stick Insect Discovered in Australia

Aug 1, 2025 by Natali Anderson

Australian entomologists have described a spectacular new species of the stick insect genus Acrophylla from two female specimens as well as eggs. Holotype...

Swamp forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Image credit: Greta Dargie.

Congo Basin’s Peatlands are More Than 42,000 Years Old, New Study Reveals

Jul 29, 2025 by News Staff

The central Congo Basin contains the world’s most extensive tropical peatland complex, spanning 16.7 million hectares. Until now, radiocarbon dating...

Jaguars get relief from the heat at an artificial waterhole in Guatemala. Image credit: WCS Guatemala.

Warming Climate Sparks Innovative Wildlife Protection Measures in Guatemala

Jul 24, 2025 by News Staff

Scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society have documented a remarkable diversity of wildlife visiting the artificial watering holes in Guatemala’s...

Live coloration of Neotrygon romeoi from around Fiji. Image credit: Glaus et al., doi: 10.1111/jfb.70094.

New Species of Blue-Spotted Maskray Discovered in Fiji

Jul 22, 2025 by News Staff

Marine scientists have identified a new species of the stingray genus Neotrygon living in Fijian waters. Live coloration of Neotrygon romeoi from around...

Koala in the wild with a custom-built collar containing a GPS logger and accelerometer. Image credit: Ami Fadhillah Amir Abdul Nasir.

Koalas Spend Only 1% of Their Life on Ground, New Study Reveals

Jul 15, 2025 by News Staff

Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) spend around 10 min per day on the ground, but this ground-time is associated with two-thirds of recorded koala deaths,...

Using ultra-deep sequencing of >300 blood samples from healthy individuals, we show that age-dependent methylation changes occur regionally across clusters of CpG sites either stochastically or in a coordinated block-like manner. Image credit: Ochana et al., doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115958.

Accurate Age Predictions are Possible Using as Few as 50 DNA Molecules: Study

Jul 15, 2025 by News Staff

Using deep learning networks analyzing DNA methylation patterns, scientists at Hebrew University achieved chronological age (defined as the amount of time...

Guan et al. demonstrate that venoms are a rich source of previously hidden antimicrobial scaffolds, and that integrating large-scale computational mining with experimental validation can accelerate the discovery of urgently needed antibiotics. Image credit: Guan et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-60051-6.

AI Finds 386 Potential Antibiotics in Animal Venoms

Jul 14, 2025 by News Staff

To identify new antimicrobial candidates, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania mined global venomics datasets using a deep-learning system called...

Polyethylene degradation by wax worms. Left: plastic bag after exposure to about 100 wax worms for 12 hours; Right: magnification of the area indicated in the image at left. Image credit: Bombelli et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.060.

Wax Moth Caterpillars Can Metabolically Degrade Plastics and Store Them as Body Fat: Study

Jul 8, 2025 by News Staff

Plastic polymers are ubiquitous in our lives, and while their resilience makes them ideal for a variety of uses, finding means to effectively dispose of...

The cases presented by Towers et al. are among the first recorded where wild killer whales (Orcinus orca) used prey and other items to instigate interactions with humans. Image credit: Towers et al., doi: 10.1037/com0000422.

Wild Killer Whales Sometimes Offer Food to Humans, Scientists Say

Jul 7, 2025 by News Staff

In a paper published online in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, marine biologists report on 34 interactions spanning two decades in which killer...

Pristimantis chinguelas. Image credit: Chávez et al., doi: 10.3897/evolsyst.9.148522.

Herpetologists Discover Three New Species of Frogs in Peru

Jul 4, 2025 by Natali Anderson

Herpetologists have described three new species of the frog genus Pristimantis from the rugged, misty highlands of northwestern Peru. Pristimantis chinguelas....

Arabidopsis plants growing in a greenhouse. Image credit: Elena Zhukova / UCR.

Biologists Uncover How Plants Sense Heat during Day

Jul 1, 2025 by News Staff

New research led by University of California, Riverside’s Professor Meng Chen shows that plants rely on multiple heat-sensing systems and that sugar...

Allokelping in southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca ater). Image credit: Weiss et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.021.

Killer Whales Fashion Tools from Kelp and Use Them for Grooming

Jun 30, 2025 by News Staff

In a paper published this month in the journal Current Biology, marine researchers report evidence of the widespread manufacture and use of grooming tools...

Representative cryo-electron microscopy image of the leading edge of a RAT-1 cell cultured on cryo-EM grids. Lamellipodia and filopodia in the upper right corner delineate the cell border, separating the cytoplasm (Cyt) from the extracellular space (Ext). Vesicular organelles are highlighted in color: early endosome-like vesicles (En, pink), multivesicular bodies (MVB, blue), hemifusomes (HF, yellow), and flipped hemifusomes (fHF, green). Scale bar - 0.5 µm. Image credit: Tavakoli et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-59887-9.

Hemifusomes: Biologists Discover Previously Unknown Organelle Complexes inside Human Cells

Jun 25, 2025 by News Staff

Hemifusomes constitute up to 10% of vesicular organelles at the cell periphery but do not engage in canonical endocytic pathways, according to a team of...

Johnson et al. report a biocompatible Lossen rearrangement that is catalyzed by phosphate in the bacterium Escherichia coli for the transformation of activated acyl hydroxamates to primary amine-containing metabolites in living cells. Image credit: Johnson et al., doi: 10.1038/s41557-025-01845-5.

Common Gut Bacterium Can Turn Everyday Plastic Waste into Paracetamol

Jun 24, 2025 by News Staff

Paracetamol, a pain medication also known as acetaminophen, is traditionally made from dwindling supplies of fossil fuels including crude oil. Thousands...

Isparta et al. believe that the significant leftward bias in sleeping position in cats may have been evolutionarily driven by hemispheric asymmetries of threat processing. Image credit: Noah Dustin von Weissenfluh / Gleb Kuzmenko / Isparta et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.043.

Two-Thirds of Domestic Cats Prefer to Sleep on Their Left Side, Study Shows

Jun 24, 2025 by Natali Anderson

New research led by scientists from the Ruhr-University Bochum, the University of Prince Edward Island, Ankara University and the University of Bari Aldo...

Tetragonula carbonaria combs. Image credit: Tobias Smith.

Honey from Australian Stingless Bees Has Unique Antimicrobial Properties, Study Shows

Jun 23, 2025 by News Staff

Honey from Australian stingless bees, commonly referred to as sugarbag bees, has historically served as a food source. It is also a traditional remedy...

The Bogong moth (Agrotis infusa), female. Image credit: Lucinda Gibson & Ken Walker, Museum Victoria / CC BY 3.0.

Bogong Moths Use Starry Night Sky as Compass, Scientists Say

Jun 19, 2025 by News Staff

Each spring, billions of Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) escape hot conditions across southeast Australia by migrating up to 1,000 km to a place that they...

Canadian Eskimo dogs. Illustration by John James Audubon and John Bachman (1845-1848).

Ancient DNA Study Traces Incredible Journey of Dogs across Americas

Jun 18, 2025 by News Staff

Pre-contact Central and South American dogs (Canis familiaris) — all dogs preceding contact with European settlers — descended from a single...

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