Category archives: Biology

First synthetic embryo with brain and beating heart independently produced twice  

First synthetic embryo with brain and beating heart independently produced twice  

BiologyBiomedicine

By Rosa García-Verdugo

Mostly, people think that an embryo can only (except in the case of parthenogenesis) result from the sum of sperm and an egg. However, two research teams, one in Israel and another multinational collaboration have recently reported producing a synthetic mouse embryo from stem cells which lasted enough to have a brain and a beating […]

Evolution, faster than anybody thought

Evolution, faster than anybody thought

BiologyEvolution

By Invited Researcher

How fast is evolution? In adaptive evolution, natural selection causes genetic changes in traits that favour the survival and reproduction of individual organisms. Although Charles Darwin thought the process occurred over geological timescales, we have seen examples of dramatic adaptive evolution over only a handful of generations. The peppered moth changed colour in response to […]

Wait, fish make sounds?

Wait, fish make sounds?

Biology

By Invited Researcher

While they may lack some of the melodic qualities of birds or whales, there are almost 1,000 species of fish that use sounds to communicate, and possibly many more. Yet, despite nearly 150 years of contemporary scientific research into fish sound production, there was no global inventory of fish species known to make sounds. Until […]

Future evolution: from looks to brains and personality, how will humans change in the next 10,000 years?

Future evolution: from looks to brains and personality, how will humans change in the next 10,000 years?

AnthropologyBiologyEvolution

By Invited Researcher

Humanity is the unlikely result of 4 billion years of evolution. From self-replicating molecules in Archean seas, to eyeless fish in the Cambrian deep, to mammals scurrying from dinosaurs in the dark, and then, finally, improbably, ourselves – evolution shaped us. Organisms reproduced imperfectly. Mistakes made when copying genes sometimes made them better fit to […]

Cod ‘supergenes’ reveal how they are evolving in response to overfishing

Cod ‘supergenes’ reveal how they are evolving in response to overfishing

BiologyEvolutionGenetics

By Invited Researcher

Cod “supergenes” have shed light on how they respond to overfishing, and these supergenes could make them more resilient to other environmental changes. That’s according to a new study published by scientists in Norway. This could be good news, in that cod have genetic architecture in place that will permit them to respond to climate […]

Seagulls, songbirds and parrots: what new research tells us about their cognitive ability

Seagulls, songbirds and parrots: what new research tells us about their cognitive ability

BiologyEthology

By Invited Researcher

As you can imagine, a human intelligence test doesn’t really cut it for birds. It isn’t that easy to assess how an animal perceives information from the environment, processes it and decides to act. But researchers have developed a range of clever experiments to find out more about their cognitive abilities. Do they recognise each […]