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Find opens debate about whether mans earliest ancestors came from Asia and were diurnal or nocturnal
A skull and jawbones recently found in China is the oldest well-preserved primate fossil ever discovered – as well as the best evidence of the presence of early primates in Asia. But the fossil raises the tantalizing possibility that remote human ancestors may have originated in Asia and stirs up debate about the nature of early primates.
In the words of Robert D. Martin
Biologists unravel part of the mystery behind disappearance of shell material
Chitin, the Earths second-most abundant biological material, is a major component in the flurry of skeletal debris discarded daily by crustacean creatures in the worlds oceans. If left undisturbed, this tough insoluble material, a cousin to cellulose, would pile up on the oceans floor and wreak havoc with marine ecosystems. Fortunately, armies of bacteria act as chitins cleanup crew,
In what is believed to be the first success of its kind, researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University have cloned a white-tailed deer. A fawn, named “Dewey,” after Duane Kraemer, one of the researchers, was born to a surrogate mother several months ago.
The fawn is believed to be the first successfully cloned deer and Texas A&M is the first academic institution in the world to have cloned five different species. Previously, researchers at the College of Veterina
When introduced to the world in 1998, human embryonic stem cells were considered heralds of a new age of transplant medicine. The prospect of an unlimited supply of cells and tissue of all kinds to treat disease captured public imagination and enthusiasm.
But lost in the glitz of the cells potential to treat an array of devastating and sometimes fatal diseases was another quality that, when all is said and done, could match even the prospect of remaking transplant technology.
A group of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute has identified a small synthetic molecule that can induce a cell to undergo dedifferentiation – to move backwards developmentally from its current state to form its own precursor cell.
This compound, named reversine, causes cells which are normally programmed to form muscles to undergo reverse differentiation – retreat along their differentiation pathway and turn into precursor cells.
These precursor cells are multipotent; that
Size matters, and colder temperatures make things bigger! This is true not just for most large furry animals and for birds, but also for the microscopic plants and animals that are at the base of the ocean’s food chain.
Scientists have long known that animals and plants are usually larger when they grow in colder environments. Now, for the first time David Atkinson, Ben Ciotti, and David Montagnes, from the University of Liverpools School of Biological Sciences, have found that this o