Biology

A clone who can live for 20,000 years

One of the great mysteries of plant biology is a seemingly immortal tree called the Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides), which reproduces by growing clones from its root system. A new study suggests that the trees live for 20,000 years. Because these aspens live for so long, nobody had been able to determine exactly how many…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Is evolution pushing our DNA towards diabetes?

Eighty DNA variants associated with type-1 diabetes have undergone positive selection, increasing in prevalence over recent generations. Here’s the crazy part – 58 of those variantsincrease the risk of the deadly disease. Why is evolution seemingly out to get us? The answer, of course, is that evolution can’t be out to get us – by…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Supernovas could be directing the development of life throughout the universe

A basic property of Earth’s organic molecules could be caused by supernova explosions. That means massive stellar explosions indirectly governed the building blocks of life on Earth…and could be doing it elsewhere in the cosmos. In chemistry, molecules are said to be chiral if they lack symmetry – in other words, if a molecule and…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Scientists fabricate a paint that destroys deadly MRSA bacteria

MRSA bacteria is a virulent bacteria that breeds in hospitals, killing patients who are recovering from surgery or other ailments. But now we can create MRSA-free hospitals, by painting them with a special substance that kills MRSA without antibiotics. A group of biotech researchers created the paint by knitting together carbon nanotubes with lysostaphin, an…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Are nanoparticles healing you or harming you? A new test has the answer.

Nanoparticles are tiny objects inserted into the body and used to deliver drugs to sick cells. They could revolutionize medicine – as long as we can prevent these untested particles from becoming accidentally toxic. A team of researchers at North Carolina State took up the task of developing a test of nanoparticle effectiveness. Toxicology professor…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Evolutionary psychologist under investigation for shoddy research at Harvard

Harvard’s media-friendly evolutionary psychologist Marc Hauser, famous for his 2006 book Moral Minds, is under investigation for misrepresenting research on morality in primates. Students asked Harvard officials to raid Hauser’s lab three years ago; they didn’t like what they found. Like his colleague Steven Pinker, Hauser believes that primates (including humans) possess psychological traits –…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Four-eared cat is at least twenty times cuter than non-mutant kitties

This tiny Russian kitten is named Luntik, and he’s got four ears. I’m pretty sure his mutant power is cuteness – just look at that ridiculous tongue! Another four-eared cat was born about two years ago in the United States. It looks truly alien, but I still want to scritch behind all of its ears.…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Why are the Southern California seas turning bright green?

When you see green waves like this washing up on shore, probably your first thought is: Toxins! Luckily, in the case of this beach near San Diego, this bizarre coloration comes from something harmless. Miriam from Deep Sea News explains: There’s a bright green algae bloom making the waves look like they’ve been highlighted with…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Deadly stomach bacteria holds remnant of the world before DNA

Biology faces a basic paradox – life requires DNA to function, yet DNA evolved after life emerged. Now a study of modern bacteria has revealed what DNA’s progenitor might be. Until now, RNA was mostly dismissed as DNA’s lackey, a messenger and intermediary between DNA’s complex instruction manual and the creation of life’s essential proteins.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Behind the Amazing Locked Doors of the Museum of Natural History

New York’s American Museum of Natural History is widely known as that huge building with great old stuffed animals inside. And the giant whale! But behind the scenes are facilities doing some of the most amazing science, ever. Let’s peek. We took a trip inside the museum’s labyrinthine back corridors—hallways stuffed with ancient artifacts and…

Tech News Sam Biddle

A massive, “unprecedented escape” of genetically-modified crops into the wild

Genetically-modified canola has been breeding undetected in the American wilds for at least “several generations,” say scientists. The escaped GM canola has already mutated into a never-before-seen strain, and now it may be modifying other plants too. Canola is a yellow flowering plant that is used to make oil. Researchers working in North Dakota, found…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Glow in the dark sperm revolutionizes biology by allowing us to observe the unobservable

It’s one of the most basic problems facing the study of sexual reproduction: sperm are just too tiny, too numerous, and too similar-looking to be studied individually. But that’s changing — thanks to glow in the dark sperm. Researchers at Syracuse University were able to alter fruit flies genetically, so that their sperm would glow…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

425 million year old blob creature recreated for the first time ever with 3D imaging

Drakozoon was a blob-like creature that lived in the oceans during the Silurian Period, some 425 million years ago. It was known from only a single fossil – until researchers sliced and diced their specimen to create this 3D model. Drakozoon was a tiny, simple organism, only about 3 millimeters long. Shaped like a cone,…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

World’s rarest coral spotted for the first time in over 100 years

Covering 30% of Earth’s surface and totaling 622 million cubic kilometers, the Pacific Ocean still holds countless secrets. But even so, oceanographers weren’t expecting to find this – supposedly extinct elkhorn coral, spotted for the first time since the 1890s. The coral was discovered – or, more accurately, rediscovered – during an underwater survey of…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Frog genes reveal the birth of the Himalaya mountains

India and China’s plates smashed into each other 55 million years ago, and this collision ultimately created the Himalayas, home to the world’s biggest mountains..but we weren’t exactly sure when this part happened. Now, thanks to frog genes, we know. Huge mountain ranges are probably the most dramatic proof of plate tectonics, as colliding plates…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

We may have been looking at the wrong DNA for the secrets of longevity

In each cell nucleus, hidden in our massive strands of human DNA, lies the secret of longevity. Or so we thought. But tiny rings of mitochondrial DNA, responsible for coding just 13 proteins, might actually hold the key. What we generally just call “the genome” is, technically speaking, the nuclear genome, the collection of genetic…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

A fish species that evolved to cope with colder waters…in just three years

Evolution isn’t generally considered a race, but no matter – the tiny stickleback fish is a clear winner. Faced with suddenly colder water, the species managed to adapt in record time – fast enough to potentially beat climate change. Stickleback fish are very small, no more than ten centimeters long. They originated in the oceans,…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

12,000 years of breeding has fundamentally changed your dog’s brain

Twelve millennia of selective breeding have created hundreds of distinct dog breeds, yet they’re still all one species – even a chihuahua and Great Dane could successfully interbreed. But all those physical changes have deeply altered how dogs’ brains work. Dogs with shorter snouts – in other words, the ones that are the most physically…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Rising numbers of radioactive wild boars plague German forests

It’s been 25 years since Chernobyl fallout contaminated flora and fauna in Europe, but German hunting officials are still dealing with rising numbers of radioactive wild boars. But why? This burgeoning boar population munches on radiation-absorbing truffles and mushrooms, and because of an overall increase in wild boars, the number of radioactive boars has gone…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar

Genes from ebola-like virus found in the human genome

The human genome contains fragments of viruses that our species tangled with in our distant evolutionary past. Now new scientific research has isolated some of the viruses that still haunt our genomes, even after millions of years of evolution. In today’s Scientific American, Katherine Harmon has a great roundup of new studies of the retrovirus…

io9 Annalee Newitz

A clone who can live for 20,000 years

Is evolution pushing our DNA towards diabetes?

Supernovas could be directing the development of life throughout the universe

Scientists fabricate a paint that destroys deadly MRSA bacteria

Are nanoparticles healing you or harming you? A new test has the answer.

Evolutionary psychologist under investigation for shoddy research at Harvard

Four-eared cat is at least twenty times cuter than non-mutant kitties

Why are the Southern California seas turning bright green?

Deadly stomach bacteria holds remnant of the world before DNA

Behind the Amazing Locked Doors of the Museum of Natural History

A massive, “unprecedented escape” of genetically-modified crops into the wild

Glow in the dark sperm revolutionizes biology by allowing us to observe the unobservable

425 million year old blob creature recreated for the first time ever with 3D imaging

World’s rarest coral spotted for the first time in over 100 years

Frog genes reveal the birth of the Himalaya mountains

We may have been looking at the wrong DNA for the secrets of longevity

A fish species that evolved to cope with colder waters…in just three years

12,000 years of breeding has fundamentally changed your dog’s brain

Rising numbers of radioactive wild boars plague German forests

Genes from ebola-like virus found in the human genome

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