Tag: Evolution
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Ancient RNA Snapshot: A Woolly Mammoth’s Life 39,000 Years Ago
The remarkable discovery in Siberia In the frozen soils of present-day Siberia, a woolly mammoth named Yuka has become a time capsule from the late Pleistocene. When a mammoth dies and encases itself in permafrost, its tissues can be preserved for tens of thousands of years. Yuka’s remains—hair, muscle, and other soft tissues—have offered scientists…
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Ancient RNA Reveals the Final Moments of a 40,000-Year-Old Siberian Woolly Mammoth
New findings illuminate the life and death of a prehistoric giant In a groundbreaking study, scientists from Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History have achieved what many believed impossible: extracting and sequencing RNA from the soft tissue of a juvenile woolly mammoth that roamed the frozen terrains of Siberia around 40,000 years…
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480-Million-Year-Old Fossil Rewrites Parasite Origins
New fossils push back the timeline of parasitism In a discovery that reshapes our view of early life, researchers have identified fossils from the Fezouata Shale in Morocco that reveal parasitic worms burrowing into mollusc shells about 480 million years ago. This extends the known origin of parasitism by roughly 60 million years, suggesting that…
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Ancient Parasite Origin: 480-Million-Year-Old Fossil Rewrites Early Life
A New Window into Ancient Parasites A recent fossil find from the Fezouata Shale in Morocco is reshaping our understanding of when parasitism first emerged on Earth. Scientists describe a 480-million-year-old specimen in which a group of parasitic worms appears to have burrowed into the shells of molluscs. This discovery pushes back the origin of…
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How Forests Kicked Off Life in the Deep Sea: A Deep-Time Evolution Tale
From Forest Floors to Ocean Depths: A Connected Timeline Long before oceans teemed with fish and corals, forests on land were already shaping the destiny of life on Earth. Recent findings show that vegetation and the oxygen it produced played a pivotal role in turning the deep sea from an oxygen-starved void into a thriving…
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Forests on Land Sparked Deep-Sea Life Worldwide
When forests reshaped the oceans About 400 million years ago, Earth’s land was beginning to resemble a green canopy of complex forests. For the oceans, this terrestrial transformation mattered profoundly. A new wave of research suggests that as forests expanded and thrived on land, they pumped more oxygen into the atmosphere. That oxygen didn’t stay…
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QuickCheck: Do Humans Share 60% of Our DNA with Bananas?
Introduction: The two very different organisms, one surprising commonality The idea that humans share a large chunk of DNA with a banana may sound bizarre at first. After all, a banana grows on a plant and we walk on two legs, talk, and think in complex ways. Yet scientists sometimes cite an intriguing stat: humans…
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Humans and Bananas: Do We Share 60% of DNA? Explained
Debunking the 60% Claim: What It Really Means The oft-cited idea that humans share 60% of our DNA with bananas sounds sensational. It’s easy to misinterpret, but the claim has roots in how scientists compare genes across species. The figure does not mean that 60% of human life is interchangeable with a banana. Instead, it…
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Do Humans Really Share 60% of Our DNA with Bananas? Debunking a Common Myth
Unraveling the 60% Claim: Where It Comes From The idea that humans share 60% of their DNA with bananas often circulates in science news roundups and social media. It sounds startling, almost magical: two life forms that seem so different share the majority of their genetic makeup. But the truth is more nuanced. The 60%…
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First-of-its-kind ‘butt drag fossil’ found in South Africa hints at a fuzzy elephant-relative 126,000 years ago
Introduction: A surprising fossil sheds new light on Africa’s ancient fauna A rare fossil discovery in South Africa is rewriting what scientists know about prehistoric mammals. Dubbed the first-of-its-kind “butt drag fossil,” researchers say the specimen reveals how an ancient, furry relative of today’s elephants moved across rocky terrains more than a hundred thousand years…