adaptation

Same mutation aided evolution in many fish species, Stanford study finds

... genetic change is responsible for an evolutionary adaptation in disparate populations. "Almost every time the stickleback evolves in fresh water it loses the armor," said David Kingsley, PhD, professor of developmental biology and lead author of the study. "Although the trait evolved many times all over the w...

The evolutionary triumph of flower power

...pearance. With the proposed model of evolution and adaptation to a human emotional niche, perhaps we have a clearer picture of our floral companions." ...

After a time-shift, mixed signals from the circadian clock

...takes several days, though the details of how this adaptation takes place are not well understood. Researchers now report findings that suggest this adaptation process does not necessarily involve a gradual and synchronous adaptation by the neurons that compri...

Secret of smallpox's success may lead to bioterror cure

...lated and eliminated from the mutants is a special adaptation of pox viruses that appears to help the viruses hide double-stranded RNA, a form of RNA that only viruses produce and that animal immune systems have learned to recognize. "It's what we call a 'pathogen associated molecular pattern' ?a biomarker tha...

A New Species of Monkey is Discovered in Tanzania: The First in Africa for More Than 20 Years

... drop below freezing; its long coat is probably an adaptation to the cold. The taxonomic name of the species, Lophocebus kipunji, recognizes the monkey’s local Kinyakyusa name (pronounced kip-oon-jee) used by a few hunters around Mt. Rungwe. The highland mangabey is extremely rare and critically endangered, wit...

NHGRI targets 12 more organisms for genome sequencing

... year. The pea aphid is a model for studying rapid adaptation because this species is exceptionally able at adapting to and resisting many pesticides. Understanding this resistance at a molecular level can lead to safer and more effective pesticides and improve human nutrition. The genome of the pea aphid, used...

Neandertal femur suggests competition with hyenas and a shift in landscape use

...major behavioral changes and major improvements in adaptation began to take shape with modern humans," said Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Anthropology at Washington University and co-author of the paper. "One of the changes that has been documented with the transition from Neanderta...

Deep sea buffet for bone-devouring worms

... study will aid understanding of the potential for adaptation between animals and microbes. ...

Living with salt

.... Yet, the secrets of its exceptionally successful adaptation to salt remained unresolved. In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (PNAS), Institute scientists Prof. Ada Zamir and Dr. Lakshmanane Premkumar of the Institute's Biological Chemistry Department and Pr...

New understanding of jet lag

...entral clock may be part of a complex evolutionary adaptation to seasonal light changes, but the mechanism, in effect, becomes confused when confronted with unnatural and dramatic shifts in light schedules. The research is part of a long-term international collaboration between the Center for Biological Timing...

Retina adapts to seek the unexpected, ignore the commonplace

... signals that are less useful, and dynamic retinal adaptation provides a means of stripping from the visual stre...g, a strategy shaped by the forces of evolution in adaptation to the average image structure of natural environments. "Yet animals encounter many environments wi...

UQ scientists break new ground in fight against infection & chronic disease

...engers and for eating microbes," she said. "This adaptation ensures the whole immune system responds to an infection in the most efficient and rapid way possible. "In some situations, this clever time-saving device could be a life-saver." Professor Stow said the study also looked at why having a "hair-tri...

A bug's life: Exceptional genomic stability yet rapid protein evolution in a carpenter ant mutualist

...d rates of protein evolution are important for the adaptation of insect mutualists remains unclear. While the current study documents rapid changes in amino acid sequence through evolutionary time, some studies suggest that most changes in proteins are slightly harmful to the bacterium and by extension, to its ...

Life in deadly conditions

... contact with the brine around them need their own adaptation strategies. These components are the cell membrane and the proteins that have to function outside the cell. Michaela Falb discovered, using theoretical analysis as part of her doctoral thesis, that Natronomonas pharaonis has a particularly large numb...

Newly discovered birdlike dinosaur is oldest raptor ever found in South America

...ortions and unusual dentition, it may have been an adaptation to hunt small prey, such as the abundant burrowing snakes, mammals, and lizards that have been discovered alongside Buitreraptor. The remarkable dinosaur was discovered in northwestern Patagonia about 700 miles southwest of Buenos Aires. Although Bu...

Pitt professor's theory of evolution gets boost from cell research

...winian model of evolution as continual and gradual adaptation to the environment glosses over gaps in the fossil record by assuming the intervening fossils simply have not been found yet. Rather, Schwartz argues, they have not been found because they don't exist, since evolution is not necessarily gradual but o...

How the brain learns to become addicted

...led orexin A acts on a brain region central to the adaptation to addictive drugs. Specifically, they found in their studies with rats that orexin A induces an adaptation that is necessary for the development of behaviors associated with drug-craving in human addicts. Th...

Genome sequencing is for ecologists, too

... more about how genetic variation is important for adaptation and how populations survive in a changing world." Colbourne is a founding member of the Daphnia Genomics Consortium and the genomics director of the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics at IU Bloomington. The U.S. Department of Energy and the Na...

Study finds evolution doesn't always favor bigger animals

...German biologist Christian Bergmann--reflected the adaptation of warm-blooded animals to become larger when they move in colder environments. The reason: Bigger animals have smaller surface to volume ratios and can more effectively conserve heat in cold environments. Similarly, smaller animals with larger surfa...

Minor mutations in avian flu virus increase chances of human infection

...2-6 receptor specificity is a critical step in the adaptation of avian viruses to a human host and appears to be... used to identify the mutations which could enable adaptation of H5N1 into the human population in the laboratory, could also be used to help identify new active ...

New analysis shows three human migrations out of Africa

... modern humans at 700,000 years ago as well as the adaptation and expansion of a new stone tool culture first found in Africa and later at 700,000 years expanded throughout Eurasia. "By the time you're done with this phase you can be 99 percent confident that there was recurrent genetic interchange between Afr...

Evolutionary shifts in olfactory sensitivities in fruit flies

...ding of the evolution of sensory systems and their adaptation to new conditions and resources. ...

Berkeley researchers lay groundwork for cell version of DNA chip

... his co-authors accomplished this feat through the adaptation of a technique, developed earlier by Bertozzi and her research group, called the "Staudinger ligation." Bertozzi's Staudinger ligation utilizes the sugar complexes called "oligosaccharides" that reside on the surface of every cell, and a reaction be...

FDA approves first medical device using rutgers biomaterial

...lates, as they are known chemically, arose from an adaptation of combinatorial chemistry to biomaterials. "Our approach uses two sets of starting materials that are combined with each other in all possible combinations," Kohn said. "In this way, we can create a large variety of related polymers from a small num...

Possible brain hormone may unlock mystery of hibernation

...rotein complex as an essential coordinator of this adaptation to the depredations of winter." "The finding has more than passing biological interest because understanding how tissues cope with the cardiovascular and oxidative stresses associated with hibernation or torpor may have direct clinical relevance," h...

Microscopic passengers to hitch ride on space shuttle

...ow scientists to investigate the microbes' genetic adaptation and ability to cause infectious disease in microgravity, and to better understand the astronauts' space environment. The results of this experiment will help NASA scientists evaluate the risks to astronauts on future exploration missions planned to ...

Nutrition a major factor in rise in twin pregnancies

...gher rate of MZ twinning turns out to be a natural adaptation to improved nutrition or culture conditions, it could prove difficult to reverse as embryo quality continues to improve ?whether in the IVF lab or in the community generally." "Because two implanted embryos have twice the chance of MZ twins than a s...

Breaks in hibernation help fight bugs

...regular break in hibernation would be an important adaptation to combat the germs, when experiencing a warmer wi...in some hibernating animals may be an evolutionary adaptation to help protect them from bacteria that grow well in low temperatures," says Luis. The research...

Ready, set, mutate?and may the best microbe win

...cate study suggests that the pathways of molecular adaptation are reproducible and not highly variable under identical conditions," Shamoo said. ...

Carnegie Mellon researchers discover key deficiencies in brains of people with autism

...e on visualization by people with autism may be an adaptation to compensate for their lower ability to call on frontal regions of the brain. "Thinking in autism is an adaption to the brain that Mother Nature provided. We now have evidence of a systematic relation between the properties of the brain and the pr...

Reversing 'hibernating' heart muscle focus of UB researchers

...nges in the molecular pathways responsible for the adaptation to decreased blood flow can be reversed more completely. The ultimate goal of manipulating these pathways will be to restore full contractile function." Areas of hibernating myocardium are common in patients with heart failure arising from coronar...

Study provides new understanding of spontaneous hybridization

...daptive trait introgression ?has a vital impact on adaptation and evolutionary diversification. "The role of hybridization in adaptive evolution is contentious. While many cases of adaptive trait introgression have been proposed, the relevant traits have rarely been identified, resulting in a lack of clear exa...

Potato blight pathogenicity explained by genome plasticity

...echanism for environmental response and ecological adaptation in pathogenic organisms has important implications. "The efforts of plant breeders to obtain resistant varieties by introducing R genes, either by classical breeding or by genetic modification, may be a waste of time and resources when the genome ...

Scientists discover that ancient genes dictate flowering, fall bud set

... CO and FT genetic pathway is key to understanding adaptation to climate change, as well as to speeding tree breeding. ...

Blue eyes -- A clue to paternity

..., it is because there could be an unconscious male adaptation for the detection of paternity, based on eye color. The laws of genetics state that eye color is inherited as follows: If both parents have blue eyes, the children will have blue eyes. If both parents have brown eyes, a quarter of the childre...

Too mellow for our predatory world

...it possible to observe such a variety of different adaptation strategies in such a relatively small number of species. However, it is not only scientists who are drawn to the island; increasingly tourists have also discovered this unique archipelago. In 2005, approx. 126,000 people descended on the island, and ...

New moth variety disarms plants guarded by selenium

...ent can be overcome by some insects, and that such adaptation potentially echoes in the food web as other predators and parasites may in turn evolve to deal with high levels of the toxic element. The findings, reported by Elizabeth Pilon-Smits of Colorado State University and colleagues there and at the Univers...

Seals protect brain, conserve oxygen by turning off shivering response on icy dives

... remaining active Seals have this physiological adaptation available just in case. This study found the seals can dive to more than 1,000 meters and for more than an hour. However, they usually take dives much shorter than their maximum capacity, and only occasionally perform very long dives. By limiting div...

HIV gets a makeover

...or the HIV one -- and then another round of forced adaptation to create viruses that would multiply with vigor. The researchers dubbed their end result simian tropic HIV (stHIV): a form of HIV-1 that only differs from the original by about 10 percent, but can effectively infect primate cells and be used to t...

Studies yield insight into the numerical brain

...chers found that this deviant quantity interrupted adaptation more if it was distant from the adaptation quantity than if it was closer--conclusive evidence that the subjects were processing numerical quan...

Birth rate, competition are major players in hominid extinctions

...le births widely spaced. For Neandertal, cultural adaptation was not sufficient to overcome and compete with modern humans, just as Paranthropus boisei could not compete with the likes of bush pigs and hyenas. " Can we, today, control our cultural behavior to ensure our environmental success," says Jablonski....

Paleontologists discover new mammal from Mesozoic Era

...gins of mammal ear structure. Mammalian hearing adaptation is made possible by a sophisticated middle ear of three tiny bones, known as the hammer (malleus), the anvil (incus) and the stirrup (stapes), plus a bony ring for the eardrum (tympanic membrane). The mammal middle ear bones evolved from the bones...

Shedding new light on proteorhodopsin

...respiratory capabilities. This would be a critical adaptation for seafaring microbes because the world's oceans are permeated with "dead zones," areas that lack sufficient oxygen to sustain life. Subsequent studies established that proteorhodopsin is a light-driven proton pump, able to transport protons acro...

Enhancing activity of marijuana-like chemicals in brain helps treat

...itzer and Malenka found that a particular form of adaptation occurs in one cell type but not in the other. Malenka said this discovery was exciting because no one had determined whether there were functional differences between the various cell types. Their study indicated that the two types of cells fo...

New success in engineering plant oils

...that this process can occur independently from the adaptation to either tropical or temperate climates." For example, such a technique could lead to the engineering of temperate crop plants to produce saturated oils as renewable feedstocks for industrial processes. Such renewable resources could help reduce ...

Researchers develop way to calculate speed of bacterial sex

...netic material between bacteria leads to bacterial adaptation and evolution; however, bacterial adaptation is a double-edged sword for the environment. While the genetic exchange among bacteria can lead to p...

Asexual worm quickly adapts to soil contamination

...ent levels of biological organisation. Genetic adaptation The nematode was exposed to a combination of di...fect on the nematode population. Unexpectedly fast adaptation was observed and considerable genetic changes took place. As a result of this the nematodes in the p...

Amphibians in losing race with environmental change

...damaging agents." Natural selection and species adaptation may, in time, allow amphibians to react to and recover from the new environmental insults, Blaustein said, if they don't go extinct first. But evolution is an erratic, often slow and imperfect system, and the complexities of amphibian life cycles ...

Puzzling plankton yield secrets to role in evolution/global photosynthesis

...secure a better grasp on the mechanisms of species adaptation and the great diversity of biological pathways operating in the oceans," said Grigoriev. "This will also enable us to predict the roles of these organisms in contributing to primary marine productivity." ...

Columbine flowers develop long nectar spurs in response to pollinators

...n may occur in a stop-and-go pattern--one in which adaptation to specific pollinators occurs very rapidly, followed by periods of no further evolution until another pollinator shift occurs, according to William Zamer, deputy director of NSF's division of integrative organismal systems. "In the case of these ...

One species, many genomes

... gene. "The genetic variability appears to reflect adaptation of local circumstances," says Weigel. It is likely that such variable genes allow plants to withstand dry or wet, hot or cold conditions, or make use of short and long growing seasons. Such genome analyses of unprecedented details will allow a much...