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Category: evolution – Page 67

Scientists who watched nerve cells connect inside the eyes of growing squid have uncovered a remarkable secret — the cephalopods’ brains independently evolved to develop in the same way ours do.

.The discovery, made using high-resolution cameras focused on the retinas of longfin squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) embryos, reveals that, in spite of 500 million years of divergent evolution, the basic blueprint for how complex brains and nervous systems evolve may be the same across a wide range of species.

The intelligence of cephalopods — a class of marine animals that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish — has long been a subject of fascination among biologists. Unlike most invertebrates, these animals possess remarkable memories; use tools to solve problems; excel at camouflage; react with curiosity, boredom or even playful malevolence to their surroundings; and can dream, if the ripples of colors that flash across their skin as they sleep are any indication.

It seems that the blueprint for complex brain development remains the same, despite 500 million years of divergent evolution.

Continue reading “Squid and human brains develop the same way despite diverging 500 million years ago” | >

In this video I showcase a program that I have been working on for simulating evolution by natural selection. I dive into various mechanisms of the simulation and go over some interesting real-life biology in the process. The key aim of this project is to evolve multicellular organisms, starting from single-celled protozoa-like creatures that must collect mass and energy from their surroundings in order to survive, grow and reproduce.

Chapters:
00:00 — Introduction.
00:56 — Life of a protozoan.
02:46 — The start of the simulation.
05:57 — How the cells work.
06:53 — Introducing multicellular colonies.
08:33 — Understanding evolution.
11:38 — Looking at data from the simulation.
13:27 — Evolving epigenetics introduction.
14:14 — Waddington’s Landscape and cell specialisation.
15:22 — The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.
16:05 — Gene Regulatory Networks.
16:54 — Outro.
17:30 — Watching the simulation.

Find the project on GitHub:
https://github.com/DylanCope/Evolving-Protozoa.

Credits:

Continue reading “Simulating Cellular Evolution: The Path To Multicellularity” | >

Chinese scientists precisely confirmed the latest volcanic activity on moon happened about 2 billion years ago after they studied the lunar samples collected by Chang’e-5 lunar probe in 2020.

The outcome was announced by the China National Space Administration on Monday.

In 2021, a team of scientists carried out researches on the volcanic rock, which is a type of basalt to help indicate the time of volcanic activity occurred, from the lunar samples and proved that the volcanic activity continued until 2 billion years ago, a new refresh for human beings toward the lunar magmatic activity and the lunar evolution.

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Of course, all stars are hot compared with anything we’re used to here on Earth. But while the Sun’s surface chills at a steady 6,000 degrees Kelvin, these stars’ extreme temperatures range from 100,000 to 180,000 degrees.

These are “stars which are a little bit outside the canonical evolution,” Klaus Werner of the University of Tuebingen’s Kepler Centre for Astro and Particle Physics, a co-author of the paper, tells Inverse. “These stars are strange.”

Even among the ultra-hot white dwarfs known by the designation PG1159, the selection that cropped up in this survey lack the helium normally found in their atmosphere: instead, they’ve burned it all away, fusing it into a solar atmosphere of pure carbon and oxygen.

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Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) have unveiled a first-of-its-kind map that could help answer decades-old questions about the origins of stars and the influences of magnetic fields in the cosmos.

The map reveals the likely structure of the Local Bubble—a giant, 1,000-light-year-wide hollow in space surrounding our Sun. Like a hunk of Swiss cheese, our galaxy is full of these so-called superbubbles. The explosive supernova deaths of massive stars blow up these bubbles, and in the process, concentrate gas and dust—the fuel for making —on the bubbles’ outer surfaces. These thick surfaces accordingly serve as rich sites for subsequent star and planet formation.

Scientists’ overall understanding of superbubbles, however, remains incomplete. With the new 3D magnetic field map, researchers now have novel information that could better explain the evolution of superbubbles, their effects on star formation and on galaxies writ large.

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Sixty-six million years ago, the age of the dinosaurs came to a dramatic close as a huge asteroid impact accelerated them on a path towards extinction. Not all of them died out, however; those that survived went on to become today’s birds.

Scientists are still trying to carefully map out the anatomical changes that occurred between dinosaurs and birds during this time, and there’s arguably no better way to do this than to engage in a little “reverse evolution.” With this in mind, a team of researchers has grown “dinosaur legs” in chicken embryos, as revealed in their study in the journal Evolution.

Remarkably, previous research manipulating chickens into “becoming” dinosaurs has already taken place. Back in 2015, a study showcased that chickens that had been tweaked during embryonic development could grow a dinosaur-like snout. A year earlier, a more low-tech study demonstrated how a few strategically-placed weights could make a chicken walk along like a Tyrannosaurus rex.

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