Category Archives: Biology

Shrew-like creature was placental mammals’ last common ancestor

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Group’s earliest primogenitor was probably a diminutive creature with a long snout, researchers suggest

The last common ancestor of today’s placental mammals – a group that includes humans, whales and armadillos – was probably a shrew-like creature with a long snout, researchers have revealed.

The forerunners of mammals are believed to have split from what eventually became reptiles around 320m years ago, but it was not until some time between 70 and 80m years ago that placental mammals arose.

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Gene-edited sheep offer hope for treatment of lethal childhood disease

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Roslin Institute engineered a flock to help research into the genetics of Batten disease

A flock of gene-edited sheep has been used by scientists to pinpoint a promising treatment for a lethal inherited brain disease that afflicts young children. The researchers, based in the UK and US, say their work could lead to the development of drugs to alleviate infantile Batten disease.

In the UK, Batten disease affects between 100 and 150 children and young adults and is inherited from two symptomless parents who each carry a rare recessive gene mutation.

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Wax worm saliva rapidly breaks down plastic bags, scientists discover

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Its enzymes degrade polyethylene within hours at room temperature and could ‘revolutionise’ recycling

Enzymes that rapidly break down plastic bags have been discovered in the saliva of wax worms, which are moth larvae that infest beehives.

The enzymes are the first reported to break down polyethylene within hours at room temperature and could lead to cost-effective ways of recycling the plastic.

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Swedish geneticist wins Nobel prize for Neanderthal research

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Svante Pääbo receives 2022 award in physiology or medicine for genome discoveries including Neanderthals

A Swedish geneticist has been awarded the 2022 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine.

Svante Pääbo won the 10m Swedish kronor (£867,000) prize announced on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

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‘Alien goldfish’ may have been unique mollusc, say scientists

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Researchers think they may have solved enduring mystery of where Typhloesus wellsi sits on tree of life

The mystery of a bizarre creature dubbed the “alien goldfish”, which has baffled fossil experts for decades, may have been solved, according to scientists who say the animal appears to have been some sort of mollusc.

Typhloesus wellsi lived about 330m years ago and was discovered in the Bear Gulch Limestone fossil site in Montana in the late 1960s, with the remains of other species subsequently identified.

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‘Interspecies innovation arms race’: cockatoos and humans at war over wheelie bin raids

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Research shows Sydney residents devising increasingly sophisticated ways to keep highly intelligent but ‘bloody annoying’ birds out of household waste

Cockatoos and humans are locked in what Australian researchers have described as “an interspecies innovation arms race”.

Sydney residents are resorting to increasingly sophisticated measures to prevent sulphur-crested cockatoos from opening and raiding household wheelie bins, detailed in new research published in the journal Current Biology.

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Anger at plans to roll back Covid vaccines to under-11s in England

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Children aged 5-11 will no longer be offered Covid jabs, except those in clinical risk groups, UKHSA confirms

The decision to reduce the number of children who are offered Covid jabs has prompted outcry from parent groups and academics.

According to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), children who had not turned five by the end of last month will not be offered a vaccination. The agency said the offer of Covid jabs to healthy 5-11-year-olds was always going to be temporary.

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Oldest human or just another ape? Row erupts over 7m-year-old fossil

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Remains from Chad desert provoke rancorous dispute over whether species was earliest to walk upright

It is a dispute that has taken a long time to reach boiling point. Seven million years after an apelike creature – since nicknamed Toumaï – traversed the landscape of modern Chad, its means of mobility has triggered a dispute among fossil experts. Some claim this was the oldest member of the human lineage. Others that it was just an old ape.

The row, kindled by a paper in Nature, last week led scientists to denounce opponents while others accused rivals of building theories on “less than five minutes’ observation” .

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Fears over China’s access to genetic data of UK citizens

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Biobank urged to review transfer of information for medical research

Rising political and security tensions between Beijing and the west have prompted calls for a review of the transfer of genetic data to China from a biomedical database containing the DNA of half a million UK citizens.

The UK Biobank said it had about 300 projects under which researchers in China were accessing “detailed genetic information” or other health data on volunteers.

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Rare collection of bird fossils from 55m years ago donated to Scottish museum

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Collection bequeathed to National Museums Scotland includes species that are unknown to science

A remarkable collection of fossilised birds that lived 55 million years ago has been bequeathed to the National Museums Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh and includes dozens of species that are unknown to science.

Dating from the beginning of the Eocene epoch, they represent the early stages in the evolution of modern birds.

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Sunlight may trigger hormone that makes men hungrier, study suggests

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Scientists find ghrelin levels rose in men’s blood after sun exposure, but oestrogen appears to block increase in women

Summer sunshine can leave us feeling hot, sweaty and a bit burnt – but it may also make men hungrier, by triggering the release of an appetite-boosting hormone from fat stores in their skin, data suggests.

The study, which was published in the journal Nature Metabolism, adds to growing evidence that the effects of sun exposure may be more complex than first thought.

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‘Extinct’ parrots make a flying comeback in Brazil

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The Spix macaw, a bird that had once vanished in the wild, is now thriving in its South American homeland after a successful breeding programme

Twenty years ago, the future of the Spix’s macaw could not have looked bleaker. The last member of this distinctive parrot species disappeared from the wild, leaving only a few dozen birds in collectors’ cages across the globe. The prospects for Cyanopsitta spixii were grim, to say the least.

But thanks to a remarkable international rescue project, Spix’s macaws – with their grey heads and vivid blue plumage – have made a stunning comeback. A flock now soars freely over its old homeland in Brazil after being released there a month ago. Later this year, conservationists plan to release more birds, and hope the parrots will start breeding in the wild next spring.

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Wild species support half of world’s population, report finds

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Sustainability is key to survival of billions of people, says UN study, which notes income from wild species incentivises conservation

• Patrick Vallance: ‘We need to change if we’re to survive’

Wild plants, animals, fungi and algae support half of the world’s population but their future use is threatened by overexploitation, according to a new assessment by leading scientists.

From the 10,000 known wild species that humans harvest for food to the firewood that one in three people need for cooking, nature is key to the livelihoods and survival of billions of people in developed and developing countries, says a new UN report.

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Earliest Pacific seafarers were matrilocal society, study suggests

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DNA analysis of 164 individuals from 2,800 to 300 years ago shows men would move to be with their wives

The world’s earliest seafarers who set out to colonise remote Pacific islands nearly 3,000 years ago were a matrilocal society with communities organised around the female lineage, analysis of ancient DNA suggests.

The research, based on genetic sequencing of 164 ancient individuals from 2,800 to 300 years ago, suggested that some of the earliest inhabitants of islands in Oceania had population structures in which women almost always remained in their communities after marriage, while men left their mother’s community to live with that of their wife. This pattern is strikingly different from that of patrilocal societies, which appeared to be the norm in ancient populations in Europe and Africa.

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Early human ancestors one million years older than earlier thought

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Fossils from South African cave are 3.4 to 3.6m years old and walked the Earth at same time as east African relatives

The fossils of our earliest ancestors found in South Africa are a million years older than previously thought, meaning they walked the Earth around the same time as their east African relatives like the famous “Lucy”, according to new research.

The Sterkfontein caves at the Cradle of Humankind world heritage site southwest of Johannesburg have yielded more Australopithecus fossils than any other site in the world.

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Malaysia’s ‘mystery hybrid monkey’ could be result of habitat loss

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Researcher says proboscis monkey may have mated with silver langur when unable to reach female of own species

The emergence of a “mystery monkey”, believed to be a rare hybrid of two distantly related primates, highlights the importance of protecting habit connectivity, according to a researcher who studied the animal.

The female monkey first attracted attention in 2017, when photographs taken of it along the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia, were uploaded to social media wildlife photography groups.

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Medical research stalled as NHS focuses on small number of trials, experts say

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Report outlines ‘research waste’ that occurred during the pandemic, with weakly designed trials exposing millions to unproven treatments

Government efforts to focus NHS resources on a smaller number of well-designed clinical trials could inadvertently be contributing to a backlog of stalled medical research, and result in some important trials being scrapped, researchers say.

Their warning comes as a report outlines the scale of “research waste” that has occurred during the pandemic, with rampant duplication of scientific efforts and weakly designed clinical trials exposing millions of patients to unproven treatments, with little scientific benefit.

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Child’s 130,000-year-old tooth could offer clues to extinct human relative

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Researchers believe the discovery in a Laos cave proves that Denisovans lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia

A child’s tooth at least 130,000 years old found in a Laos cave could help scientists uncover more information about an early human cousin, according to a new study.

Researchers believe the discovery proves that Denisovans – a now-extinct branch of humanity – lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia.

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Migrating turtles don’t really know where they’re going, study shows

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Hawksbill turtles often travel circuitous routes for short distances – one swam 1,306km to reach an island just 176km away

How migrating animals like sea turtles navigate hundreds to thousands of kilometres across the open ocean has intrigued biologists since Charles Darwin. But some sea turtles might not really know where they’re going, new research suggests.

Analysis by an international team of scientists has mapped the movements of hawksbill turtles as they swam from their nesting grounds in the Chagos Archipelago to foraging sites also in the Indian Ocean.

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At least one child has died from mystery strain of severe hepatitis, WHO confirms

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Strain reported in 12 countries causing at least 169 cases in young children, most of them in the UK

At least one child has died from a mystery strain of severe hepatitis which has now been reported in 12 countries, the World Health Organization has confirmed.

The UN body said on Saturday that it is aware of 169 rare cases of acute hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver, in young children. Of these, 17 became so sick they needed liver transplants.

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