Articles with the keyword: 
Conserved Gene Expression Reveals Our Inner Fish
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
A study of gene expression in chickens, frogs, pufferfish, mice and people has revealed surprising similarities in several key tissues. Researchers have shown that expression in tissues with a limited number of specialized cell types is strongly conserved, even between the mammalian and non-mammalian vertebrates. 
How Did Insects Get Their Wings?
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (blogs.sciencemag.org)
Exactly how insects evolved flight is a heated issue, in part because the fossil evidence for winged insects remains full of gaps. But living insects that are similar to ancestral species could also shed light on the origins of insect flight. In a study reported online this week in Biology Letters, researchers report that bristletails, primitive, wingless insects that live in the tropical forests of Peru, can use long antennae-like filaments extending from their rear ends to help them glide to tree trunks as they jump or fall from forest canopies
NC State study finds genes important to sleep
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.eurekalert.org)
For many animals, sleep is a risk: foraging for food, mingling with mates and guarding against predators just aren't possible while snoozing.
How, then, has this seemingly life-threatening behavior remained constant among various species of animals?
A new study by scientists at North Carolina State University shows that the fruit fly is genetically wired to sleep, although the sleep comes in widely variable amounts and patterns. Learning more about the genetics of sleep in model animals could lead to advances in understanding human sleep and how sleep loss affects the human condition.
An Earlier Debut for a Famous Algae
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
Life takes cooperation. That's true in politics, on the playground--and for evolution, because switching from a “me” to “we” mindset helped cells evolve to more complex organisms. New research shows that cells in green algae called Volvox may have learned to cooperate much earlier than thought, shifting the evolutionary time frame for this model organism back hundreds of millions of years--a somewhat controversial finding.
Volvox is a perennial favorite among biologists, who study the algae to learn how multicellular organisms evolved
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
An international research team of scientists from UC Riverside, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions has found the oldest evidence for animals in the fossil record.
Fossil of pregnant whale found
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.nature.com)
Scientists have discovered the first known fossils of a pregnant early whale and her unborn calf, and with them evidence that these ancient creatures may have given birth on land.
Food and memory: Does less of one mean more of the other?
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
This writeup in Science magazine discusses the possibility that extremely low-calorie diets may improve memory (or at least diminish fuzziness), particularly among the elderly. All of the participants in this trial were over sixty and--possibly significantly--already overweight.
I wonder if caloric restriction would have the same memory-improving effects on people who were not already overweight. Perhaps it is approaching one's ideal weight that does the trick.
The Fastest Way to Change a Species: Start Eating It
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
From the dwindling Atlantic cod to the increasingly rare American ginseng plant, species are racing to adjust to relentless human exploitation. According to a new analysis, the rate at which hunted and harvested species are changing their size and breeding schedules is unmatched in natural systems. Ecologists say the results point to errors in the way we manage fisheries and other harvested populations.
Researchers have noted rapid changes in heavily exploited fish and other species since the 1970s
Researchers find the first vertebrate eye to use mirror instead of lens
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.newscientist.com)
The deep sea is full of surprises, and the four-eyed spookfish is up there with the best of them. It is the first vertebrate found with eyes that use mirrors, rather than a lens, to focus light.
Discovery of Lentivirus in Lemur Could Shed Light on History of AIDS and HIV
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
The genome of a squirrel-sized, saucer-eyed lemur from Madagascar may help scientists understand how HIV-like viruses coevolved with primates, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The discovery, to be published online on Dec. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could provide insight into why non-human primates don't get AIDS and lead to treatments for humans.
Scientists have long believed that lentiviruses — the family of viruses that includes HIV — started infecting primates within the past million years
Common Cold Virus Came from Birds About 200 Years Ago, Study Suggests
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
A virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to a new article published in the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.
"Human metapneumovirus may be the second most common cause of lower respiratory infection in young children. Studies have shown that by the age of five, virtually all children have been exposed to the virus and re-infections appear to be common," said Professor Dr Fouchier
Terrapins exposed! Nature writes about turtles before the shells.
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.nature.com)
I particularly like the artist's depiction of the turtle ancestors. Even if, like most so many such drawings, it later proves to be inaccurate, it is a nice, vivid rendering. I particularly like that it shows the turtles as flexible, able to bend their bodies and necks. If I had to guess how this picture would turn out to be inaccurate, I'd say it's the heads. They're drawn with modern, meant-to-be-pulled-in turtle heads.
Simple Eyes of Only Two Cells Guide Marine Zooplankton to the Light
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
Researchers unravel how the very first eyes in evolution might have worked and how they guide the swimming of marine plankton towards light.
Larvae of marine invertebrates – worms, sponges, jellyfish - have the simplest eyes that exist. They consist of no more than two cells: a photoreceptor cell and a pigment cell. These minimal eyes, called eyespots, resemble the "proto-eyes" suggested by Charles Darwin as the first eyes to appear in animal evolution. They cannot form images but allow the animal to sense the direction of light
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
A common European weed has turned its compact flower into an expansive, yellow-petalled blossom by borrowing a couple of genes from a close Italian relative. Researchers say the exchange is a rare documented example of beneficial genetic flow between species. It also challenges the notion that higher organisms must rely on their own genes to evolve.
The story starts three hundred years ago, when botanists introduced a yellow Sicilian flower called Senecio squalidus to Oxford, U.K. At the time, there was only one variety of a British weed known as the common groundsel (S
Bird Brains Split Lookout Duty
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
What good is half a brain? Good enough for migratory birds to avoid predators when napping in the daytime. A new study finds that migrating birds take mini-naps during the day but only rest half their brains at a time, allowing them to keep one eye
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