Genetics News

Genome of Enigmatic Little Skate Sequenced

The cartilage of the little skate (Leucoraja erinacea) is stained with Alcian blue, the bones with Alizarin red. Image credit: David Gold, Lynn Kee & Meghan Morrissey / MBL Embryology Course.
Apr 12, 2023 by News Staff

Skates are cartilaginous fish whose body plan features enlarged wing-like pectoral fins, enabling them to thrive in benthic environments. However, the molecular underpinnings of this unique trait remain unclear. An multinational team of researchers investigated the origin of this innovation by developing the little skate (Leucoraja erinacea) as a genomically enabled model. Their analysis of a high-quality chromosome-scale genome sequence for the little...

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An illustration of an adult male woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) navigates a mountain pass in Arctic Alaska, 17,100 years ago. Image credit: James Havens / University of Alaska Museum of the North.

Woolly Mammoths Carried Highly Evolved Genes Related to Hair, Skin, Fat Metabolism, and Immunity

Apr 10, 2023 by News Staff

In new research, scientists analyzed 23 ancient genomes of woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), including one of the oldest known specimens at 700,000...

Selaginella bryopteris in Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid, Spain. Image credit: Luis Fernández García / CC BY-SA 2.1 ES.

Earth’s Earliest Land Plants Were Branched, New Research Suggests

Mar 28, 2023 by News Staff

Diverse branching forms have evolved multiple times across the tree of life to facilitate resource acquisition and exchange with the environment. As an...

Dong et al. elucidate grapevine evolution and domestication histories with 3,525 cultivated and wild accessions worldwide: in the Pleistocene, harsh climate drove the separation of wild grape ecotypes caused by continuous habitat fragmentation; then, domestication occurred concurrently about 11,000 years ago in Western Asia and the Caucasus to yield table and wine grapevines; the Western Asia domesticates dispersed into Europe with early farmers, introgressed with ancient wild western ecotypes, and subsequently diversified along human migration trails into muscat and unique western wine grape ancestries by the Late Neolithic. Image credit: Dong et al., doi: 10.1126/science.add8655.

New Study Sheds Light on Origins and Domestication of Grapevines

Mar 22, 2023 by News Staff

Humans have extensively shaped animals and plants through domestication. Although wine and table grapes have been important culturally for thousands of...

The faba bean (Vicia faba) in Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, 1885.

Scientists Sequence Faba Bean Genome

Mar 9, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Researchers have produced a high-quality chromosome-level genome of the faba bean (Vicia faba), one of the earliest domesticated crops. The faba bean (Vicia...

Reconstruction of a hunter-gatherer associated with the Gravettian culture (32,000-24,000 years ago), inspired by the archaeological findings at the Arene Candide site, Italy. Image credit: Tom Bjoerklund.

Scientists Sequence Genomes of Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers from Different Eurasian Cultures

Mar 2, 2023 by News Staff

Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years. However, our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers...

Mathematicians often describe arguments as beautiful or dull, and famous scientists have claimed that mathematical beauty is a guide toward the truth. Do laypeople, like mathematicians and scientists, experience mathematics aesthetically? Three studies by Johnson & Steinerberger suggest that they do. Image credit: Gerd Altmann.

Researchers Identify Three Genetic Variants Associated with Mathematical Abilities in Children

Feb 23, 2023 by News Staff

Mathematical ability is moderately heritable, and it is a complex trait which can be evaluated in several different categories. A few genetic studies have...

A model of a Neanderthal man in modern clothing. Image credit: H. Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

New DNA Study Points to Importance of Balancing Selection in Human Evolution

Feb 22, 2023 by News Staff

Different genetic traits can be beneficial (for example, fending off disease) or harmful (making humans more susceptible to illness), depending on the...

The Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul). Image credit: Nicolas Fischer / CC BY 3.0.

Pallas’s Cats Inhabit Mount Everest Region, New Study Shows

Jan 26, 2023 by Natali Anderson

At least two individuals of the Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul) live in Sagarmatha National Park, Mount Everest region, eastern Nepal, according to a...

Top - Madagascar, from left to right: Aldabrachelys abrupta, Aldabrachelys grandidieri, Pyxis planicauda, Pyxis arachnoides, Astrochelys rogerbouri (new species), Astrochelys yniphora, and Astrochelys radiata. Center - Granitic Seychelles (extinct), Aldabra, Aldabrachelys gigantea. Bottom - Mascarenes, from left to right: Cylindraspis indica (Réunion), Cylindraspis inepta, Cylindraspis triserrata (both Mauritius), Cylindraspis vosmaeri, and Cylindraspis peltastes (both Rodrigues). Image credit: Michal Rössler / Massimo Delfino.

Ancient DNA Study Elucidates Lost World of Indian Ocean Giant Tortoises

Jan 16, 2023 by News Staff

Before humans arrived, giant tortoises occurred on many islands in the western Indian Ocean. In new research, Professor Uwe Fritz from the Senckenberg...

The East Asian finless porpoise (Neophocaena sunameri) photographed in Penglai Polar Ocean World, Penglai, Shandong, China. Image credit: Yin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01868-4.

Researchers Sequence Genome of East Asian Finless Porpoise

Jan 16, 2023 by News Staff

The team’s goal was to assemble a gapless genome for the East Asian finless porpoise (Neophocaena sunameri) to aid in the conservation of this endangered...

The Hoko-3 cultivar of red perilla. Image credit: Mishima Foods Co., Ltd.

Researchers Sequence Chromosome-Level Genome of Red Perilla

Jan 12, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Scientists in Japan have generated a highly contiguous genome assembly of the red variety of Perilla frutescens, an important herbal plant with hundreds...

Denisovans were probably dark-skinned, unlike the pale Neandertals. The picture shows a Neanderthal man. Image credit: Mauro Cutrona.

New Research Shows How Humans Lost Their Body Hair

Jan 6, 2023 by News Staff

Humans, whales, elephants, and naked mole-rats all share a somewhat rare trait for mammals: their bodies are covered with little to no hair. The common...

The great hammerhead shark (Sphyrna mokarran). Image credit: Christopher Vaughn-Jones.

Researchers Sequence Genomes of Two Endangered Shark Species

Jan 5, 2023 by News Staff

Scientists have sequenced the chromosome-level genomes of the great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran) and the shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) sharks. Their...

Neri et al. expanded RNA virus diversity from 13,282 to 124,873 distinct clusters at a granularity level between species and genus. Image credit: Neri et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.08.023.

Biologists Discover Over 100,000 New Types of RNA Viruses

Dec 26, 2022 by News Staff

Scientists from Tel Aviv University and elsewhere have detected 111,000 new RNA virus genomes in global environmental data from diverse habitats and hosts....

This graphical abstract depicts the rise of new genes in humans. Image credit: Vakirlis et al., doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111808.

Homo sapiens is Still Evolving, New Study Shows

Dec 21, 2022 by News Staff

Scientists from the Institute for Fundamental Biomedical Research at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center ‘Alexander Fleming’ and the Smurfit Institute...

A portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA methylation maps. Image credit: Maayan Harel.

Denisovan DNA Shaped Papuans’ Immune System, New Study Shows

Dec 9, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Modern humans have admixed with multiple species of archaic hominins. Papuans, in particular, owe up to 5% of their genome to Denisovans, a sister group...

Reconstruction of the Kap København Formation ecosystem 2 million years ago. Image credit: Beth Zaiken.

Scientists Reconstruct 2-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem from Environmental DNA

Dec 8, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Researchers have analyzed microscopic fragments of 2-million-year-old environmental DNA from of the Kap København Formation in Greenland. The DNA record...

Fragment of a polychrome tomb-painting (before 1350 BCE, today in the British Museum) representing Nebamun, standing in a small boat, fowling and fishing in the marshes, his wife stands behind and his daughter sits beneath, he holds a throw-stick in one hand and three decoy herons in the other, his cat is shown catching three of the numerous birds. Image credit: Marcus Cyron / British Museum.

Cats Were Domesticated in Near East, Genetic Study Suggests

Dec 6, 2022 by News Staff

Cat domestication likely initiated as a symbiotic relationship between wildcats and the peoples of developing agrarian societies in the Fertile Crescent....

Reconstitution of Spiroplasma swimming in JCVI-syn3B by expressing seven genes. Image credit: Kiyama et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abo7490.

Japanese Scientists Create ‘Smallest Mobile Lifeform’

Dec 1, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Researchers from the Osaka City University, the Osaka Metropolitan University and the Bioproduction Research Institute have created a swimming synthetic...

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