Hacker News with Generative AI: Evolution

Mother's Curse (wikipedia.org)
In biology, mother's curse is an evolutionary effect that males inherit deleterious mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) mutations from their mother, while those mutations are beneficial, neutral or less deleterious to females.

Biology, Genetics, Evolution, Mitochondrial DNA

6 points by teleforce 34 days ago | 0 comments

Elephants evolved to beat cancer, and how we could too (newatlas.com)
Scientists have recently shed some light on exactly why elephants, one of the biggest animals on the planet, paradoxically experience unusually low rates of cancer.

Cancer, Evolution, Biology, Animals, Health

17 points by Brajeshwar 37 days ago | 6 comments

Ancient reptile footprints are rewriting the history of when animals evolved (apnews.com)
Canada is talking to the US about joining its ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system, Carney says

Evolution, Biology, Military, Politics, Defence

32 points by gmays 40 days ago | 8 comments

Williams Syndrome: The people who are too friendly (bbc.com)
People with Williams Syndrome treat strangers as their new best friends. Now the condition is giving clues to our evolutionary past – and what makes us human.

Genetics, Psychology, Social Behavior, Evolution

17 points by bookofjoe 42 days ago | 1 comments

Intelligence on Earth Evolved Independently at Least Twice (wired.com)
Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions, and think critically. But we can’t claim a monopoly on thought.

Intelligence, Evolution, Biology, Science

12 points by elisson22 43 days ago | 2 comments

Why Is the Kiwi's Egg So Big? (audubon.org)
The flightless kiwi is so unbirdlike that many biologists call it an “honorary mammal.”

Biology, Birds, New Zealand, Evolution

77 points by repost_bot 57 days ago | 54 comments

All roses were once yellow (phys.org)
Red roses, the symbol of love, were likely yellow in the past, indicates a large genomic analysis by researchers from Beijing Forestry University, China.

Genetics, Botany, Evolution, China, Research

48 points by gmays 57 days ago | 6 comments

Earth's oceans used to be green, and they could turn purple next (newatlas.com)
For ages, Earth has been known as a blue planet, a vision largely shaped by the vast oceans that cover three-quarters of its surface. But what if this wasn't always the case, and our oceans used to be green? That's the surprising claim in a new study published in Nature Geology & Evolution.

Earth Science, Oceans, Evolution, Climate Change

30 points by Brajeshwar 61 days ago | 3 comments

Are these chimps having a fruity booze-up in the wild? (arstechnica.com)
New data suggests that the human inclination toward feasting in groups is part of our deep evolutionary history.

Primate Behavior, Evolution, Social Behavior, Alcohol

11 points by PaulHoule 62 days ago | 3 comments

Magnetic Collapse: A Spur to Evolution? (centauri-dreams.org)
The sublime, almost fearful nature of deep time sometimes awes me even more than the kind of distances we routinely discuss in these pages.

Evolution, Science, Space, Time

9 points by JPLeRouzic 63 days ago | 0 comments

Bird Went Extinct and Then Evolved into Existence Again (vice.com)
The Aldabra white-throated rail, a flightless bird that lives on its namesake atoll in the Indian Ocean, doesn’t look like anything special at first glance. But the small bird has big bragging rights, because it has effectively evolved into existence twice after first going extinct some 136,000 years ago.

Evolution, Biology, Extinction, Birds

11 points by MrBuddyCasino 67 days ago | 3 comments

Chicken-or-egg evolutionary problem solved by missing link molecule (cosmosmagazine.com)
An accidental discovery could provide clues to a chicken-or-egg question which has puzzled scientists for decades: what came first – oxygen production by photosynthesis or oxygen consumption by aerobic metabolism?

Science, Biology, Evolution, Photosynthesis, Aerobic Metabolism

5 points by geox 70 days ago | 0 comments

Molecular clock: bacteria used oxygen long before widespread photosynthesis (phys.org)
Molecular clock analysis shows bacteria used oxygen long before widespread photosynthesis

Biology, Evolution, Science, Microbiology

13 points by PaulHoule 72 days ago | 3 comments

Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex (quantamagazine.org)
A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution.

Physics, Cosmology, Entropy, Complexity, Evolution

149 points by konradx 75 days ago | 98 comments

In the evolution of life, did metabolism come first? (knowablemagazine.org)
Four billion years ago, our planet was water and barren rock. Out of this, some mighty complicated chemistry bubbled up, perhaps in a pond or a deep ocean vent. Eventually, that chemistry got wrapped in membranes, a primitive cell developed and life emerged from the ooze.

Evolution, Biology

5 points by rbanffy 76 days ago | 0 comments

A recent study suggests that insects branched out from crustaceans (smithsonianmag.com)
Shrimp look an awful lot like bugs. The exoskeletons, jointed legs and compound eyes of both groups of living things give them more than a passing resemblance to each other, so no wonder some people call shrimp-like crawfish “mudbugs,” and a tattoo reading “shrimps is bugs” became a viral meme for underscoring the resemblance. But the tattoo got the reality backwards. Shrimp are not bugs. Bugs—or, more properly, insects—are technically a form of crustacean.

Evolution, Biology, Entomology, Crustaceans, Insects

96 points by Carrok 77 days ago | 90 comments

Mammoth genetic diversity throughout the last million years (sciencedaily.com)
A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these animals.

Genetics, Paleontology, Evolution, Genomics, Animals

23 points by docmechanic 79 days ago | 2 comments

Dire Wolves Were Not Wolves, New Genetic Clues Reveal (2021) (scientificamerican.com)

Genetics, Paleontology, Animals, Evolution, Science

9 points by stared 80 days ago | 1 comments

Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals (quantamagazine.org)
Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions and think critically. But we can’t claim a monopoly on thought. Among a variety of nonhuman species known to display intelligent behavior, birds have been shown time and again to have advanced cognitive abilities.

Intelligence, Evolution, Animals, Cognition, Birds

247 points by rbanffy 81 days ago | 184 comments

Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans (newscientist.com)
Bonobos combine their calls in a complex way that forms distinct phrases, a sign that this type of syntax is more evolutionarily ancient than previously thought.

Primates, Animal Behavior, Linguistics, Science, Evolution

192 points by docmechanic 81 days ago | 125 comments

Scientists uncover key mechanism in evolution: Whole-genome duplication drives (sciencedaily.com)
Sometimes, the most significant scientific discoveries happen by accident.

Evolution, Genetics, Biology, Scientific Discovery

79 points by docmechanic 90 days ago | 24 comments

Deadly bacteria have developed the ability to wipe out competitors (phys.org)
A drug-resistant type of bacteria that has adapted to health care settings evolved in the past several years to weaponize an antimicrobial genetic tool, eliminating its cousins and replacing them as the dominant strain.

Antibiotics, Bacteria, Science, Health Care, Evolution

5 points by zfg 97 days ago | 0 comments

When the Animals Went Electric (nautil.us)
What a superpower sense tells us about evolutionary creativity

Evolution, Animal Behavior, Neuroscience, Superpowers

10 points by dnetesn 102 days ago | 0 comments

Thrive is a free, open-source game about the evolution of life (github.com/Revolutionary-Games)
This is the code repository for Thrive. For more information, visit Revolutionary Games' Website.

Open Source, Games, Evolution, Biology

3 points by BSDobelix 103 days ago | 0 comments

Genomic study: our capacity for language emerged at least 135k years ago (phys.org)
It is a deep question, from deep in our history: when did human language as we know it emerge? A new survey of genomic evidence suggests our unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago. Subsequently, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ago.

Genomics, Language, Evolution, History, Science

113 points by wglb 103 days ago | 90 comments

Tiny changes in gene expression make big difference in eye size of fruit flies (phys.org)
An international team of scientists has discovered that tiny changes in the timing of the expression of a single gene can lead to big differences in eye size.

Genetics, Biology, Fruit Flies, Evolution

57 points by PaulHoule 106 days ago | 16 comments

The Prehistoric Psychopath (worksinprogress.co)
Life in the state of nature was pleasant, cooperative and longer than you might think. Most of our ancestors avoided conflict. But this made them vulnerable to a few psychopaths.

Human History, Psychology, Evolution

8 points by satvikpendem 106 days ago | 0 comments

A 62M-year-old skeleton sheds light on an enigmatic mammal (sciencedaily.com)
For more than 140 years, Mixodectes pungens, a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early Paleocene, was a mystery.

Paleontology, Mammals, Science, Extinct Animals, Evolution

29 points by docmechanic 106 days ago | 9 comments

A longer, sleeker super predator: Megalodon's true form (news.ucr.edu)
The megalodon has long been imagined as an enormous great white shark, but new research suggests that perception is all wrong.

Paleontology, Sharks, Science, Evolution

4 points by gnabgib 108 days ago | 0 comments

Chimeric particles expand species boundaries in chromosomal island mobilization (biorxiv.org)
Some mobile genetic elements spread among unrelated bacterial species through unknown mechanisms.

Genetics, Microbiology, Evolution, Biology, Research

4 points by lawrenceyan 118 days ago | 0 comments