How do people live beyond 110? Abundance of cancer-killing cells might be key

Research on people 110 years and older reveals an immune system that continues to adapt.

nature.com

Ornaments evolve faster than weapons

Abstract. We investigate the evolutionary dynamics of sexually selected traits using both a mathematical model and comparative analyses, focusing on the re

royalsocietypublishing.org

Female clones created from the blood of male mice | New Scientist

A CRISPR-based tool can perform sex reversal on male mouse embryos, reliably turning them into healthy females – a feat that could be valuable for conservation

newscientist.com

An erratic aerial approach enables mating survival in the cannibalistic killer fly

Mating sequences carry risks for species that engage in cannibalism. Munkvold et al. demonstrate that male killer flies, Coenosia attenuata, reduce this risk with an erratic series of aerial jinks. This behavior allows a male to trigger a female pursuit, avoid cannibalism, contact the female safely midair, and achieve mating.

dlvr.it

Female North American passerine birds have lower apparent survival than males

Abstract. Survival is a fundamental organismal trait which can vary by sex, yet the extent of sex-biased survival is largely unknown across most taxa. To a

doi.org

Snail slime does many jobs thanks to calcium

Snails have five distinct types of mucus, each with its own job. The mollusks tweak calcium secretions to get the chemical mixture just right.

sciencenews.org

Molecular memory: How a mother's age echoes in her offspring's cells

In humans and many other animals, a mother's age can affect the physical and behavioral characteristics of the next generation.

phys.org

Mate choice copying in non-human animals: an update of two meta-analyses

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.

doi.org

The Marginal Value Theorem in Caenorhabditis elegans

The Marginal Value Theorem (MVT) is an important part of Optimal Foraging Theory, predicting the optimal time to leave a food patch. It has been mostly studied in birds, insects and mammals, even though simpler organisms also need to forage efficiently in patchy environments. Here we test whether the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans implements the MVT. We recorded individual nematodes exploring patchy environments, across four inter-patch distances and three different food qualities, and found that C. elegans behavior matches MVT predictions: When food patches are further away, each food patch is exploited for a longer time. In previous studies animals achieved this by modulating the duration of visits to food patches. Similarly, we found that C. elegans also increases visit duration with inter-patch distance, but this only accounts for half of the increase in total exploitation time. The other half of the increase comes from C. elegans revisiting food patches multiple times, and the number of these revisits increasing with inter-patch distance. This increase in the number of revisits is not due to behavioral changes in response to distance, but rather to a passive interaction between trajectories and environment geometry. These results show that C. elegans can learn the statistics of an environment and use this information in a way consistent with the MVT, but also that part of the fitness-relevant outcomes can emerge passively.

dlvr.it

Eco-evolutionary feedback reshapes competitive dynamics in an orchard fly system

The feedback between competition and evolution is central to hypotheses about the origin and maintenance of species diversity. Yet, whether competition-induced evolution is sufficiently rapid, consist...

science.org

Ecologically relevant low oxygen levels reduce unfertilized oocyte output in Caenorhabditis elegans | microPublication

micropublication.org

Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space - Nature Ecology & Evolution

A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of passerine body plans over the past ~50 Myr shows rare bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origin of major taxonomic groups that are temporally aligned with periods of increased climatic instability. Similar patterns are reflected in contemporary spatial gradients, where higher-latitude and more seasonal environments show elevated phenotypic rates.

go.nature.com

The eukaryote chromosome, a two-state system with interconversion by a volume phase transition

The formation of metaphase chromosomes requires the activity of condensins, DNA translocases that reduce chromosomal length through the process of loop extrusion. Reduction of length, however, does no...

science.org

Evolutionary history and life-history traits influence cause-specific mortality in domestic dogs

Abstract. A fruitful avenue to understand differences in lifespan is to study the factors driving differences in intrinsic mortality, such as disease. The

doi.org

Selective targeting of cancer and senescence via shared metabolic shifts extends lifespan of old mice | Aging

Eliminating both senescent and cancer cells through pharmacological intervention presents a powerful therapeutic strategy against aging and tumor progression. Navitoclax has emerged as a promising ca

aging-us.com

Female gut muscles reshape to meet the demands of reproduction, preclinical study suggests

Organs don't just grow in early life; they can change in response to physiological or environmental challenges in adulthood.

medicalxpress.com