All Ecology & Evolution articles – Page 3
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NewsResearch team traces evolutionary history of bacterial circadian clock on ancient Earth
To better understand the circadian clock in modern-day cyanobacteria, researchers studied ancient timekeeping systems. They examined the oscillation of the clock proteins in modern cyanobacteria, comparing it to the function of ancestral Kai proteins.
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NewsLight-to-electricity nanodevice reveals how Earth’s oldest surviving cyanobacteria worked
An international team of scientists have unlocked a key piece of Earth’s evolutionary puzzle by decoding the structure of a light-harvesting “nanodevice” in one of the planet’s most ancient lineages of cyanobacteria.
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NewsDual associations with two fungi improve tree fitness
Many tree species have formed a concurrent symbiosis with two different groups of mycorrhizal fungi. Those trees cope better with water and nutrient scarcity, which is an important trait for forestry in the face of climate warming.
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NewsFamily of parasite proteins presents new potential malaria treatment target
Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM) have shown that the evolution of a family of exported proteins in the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum enabled it to infect humans. Source: Ernst Hempelmann Ring stage of Plasmodium falciparum in human red blood ...
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NewsClimate change is turning coastal lagoons into ‘salty soup’
The impacts of human activity and climate change are coalescing to make coastal lagoons saltier, changing the microbial life they support and the function they play in their ecosystems, according to new research.
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NewsChimpanzees use medicinal leaves to clean and treat their wounds
Scientists studying chimpanzees in Budongo Forest, Uganda, have observed that these primates don’t just treat their own injuries, but care for others, too — information which could shed light on how our ancestors first began treating wounds and using medicines.
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NewsStudy uncovers why so many microbes fail to grow in the lab
Many microorganisms die when attempts are made to cultivate them. A new study suggests that that their survival does not depend solely on the needs of individual microbes but on a hidden web of relationships that can be caused to collapse by even small structural changes.
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NewsActivating ‘jumping genes’ speeds up bacterial evolution from decades to weeks
Scientists have developed a system to control and accelerate the evolution of changes in the bacterial genome structure, targeting small ‘jumping genes’, or DNA sequences known as insertion sequences.
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NewsPredictive AI model can help build vaccines for future versions of a virus
Researchers have created an AI tool called EVE-Vax that can predict and design viral proteins likely to emerge in the future. For SARS-CoV-2, panels of these “designer” proteins triggered similar immune responses as real-life viral proteins that emerged during the pandemic.
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NewsBat virus evolution suggests wildlife trade sparked COVID-19 virus emergence in humans
The ancestor of the virus that causes COVID-19 left its point of origin in Western China or Northern Laos just several years before the disease first emerged in humans up to 2,700 kilometers away in Central China, suggesting the wildlife trade played a role.
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NewsThe solution for microbial communities to survive environmental stress is self-sufficiency
Researchers have shown, based on an experimental system that reproduces a mutualistic microbial community, that the most common evolutionary solution for two co-dependent organisms to survive extreme environmental change could be to become self-sufficient.
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NewsUltimate self-sacrifice: Bacteria activate unusual defense to evade viral attack
Scientists discover that the restriction modification system in some bacteria can kill the cell as a last resort if viruses try to thwart it. They trigger their own death using components of the very same systems that the phages were trying to inhibit.
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NewsBirds hold remarkable clues to fighting human and animal infections
Researchers have uncovered a remarkable evolutionary adaptation in birds that could hold vital clues for combating avian flu and respiratory infections in humans, including pneumonia and COVID-19.
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NewsCyanobacterium study reveals how circadian clocks maintain robustness in changing environments
New research has uncovered how a simple circadian clock network demonstrates advanced noise-filtering capabilities, enhancing our understanding of how biological circuits maintain accuracy in dynamic natural environments.
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NewsIn Croatia’s freshwater lakes, selfish bacteria hoard nutrients, shaping food webs
Researchers have documented ’selfish polysaccharide uptake’ by bacteria in freshwater ecosystems for the first time. They found that nutrient hoarding allows selfish species to dominate over others, which could shape a lake’s food web.
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NewsResearchers uncover role of fungal circadian clock in pathogenicity
A new study reveals that the circadian clock plays a pivotal role in regulating Fusarium oxysporum’s response to zinc starvation—a core plant defense strategy—as well as in controlling secondary metabolism, thereby enhancing its virulence.
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NewsScientists discover new microbe phylum cleaning the water in Earth’s deep soil
Scientists have discovered a new phylum of microbes in the Earth’s Critical Zone, an area of deep soil that restores water quality. Ground water, which becomes drinking water, passes through where these microbes live, and they consume the remaining pollutants.
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NewsParasite avoidance study could shed new light on social distancing’s role in disease prevention
New research could shed light on just how important the simple but understudied strategy of social distancing for avoiding disease might be. The work will look at how organisms evolve to avoid parasites.
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NewsThe new season of The Last of Us has a spore-ting chance at realism
The trailer for the hit HBO series appears to show the ’zombie fungus’ cordyceps infecting humans by releasing air-borne spores, instead of through tentacles — closer to scientific reality, according to experts.
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NewsHow a small number of mutations can fuel outbreaks of western equine encephalitis virus
New research shows how small shifts in the molecular makeup of a virus can profoundly alter its fate. These shifts could turn a deadly pathogen into a harmless bug or supercharge a relatively benign virus, influencing its ability to infect humans.