Northern elephant seals are the true masters of the power nap. On long trips out to sea, the seals snooze less than 20 minutes at a time, researchers report in…
Category: Life
Surprise! Rapid heritable adaptation can occur without initial standing genetic variation – Functional Ecologists
In this new post, Kimberley Lemmen—a post-doc working at the University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland—discusses her paper: Experimental evidence of rapid heritable adaptation in the absence of initial standing genetic…
Turning Gray: Stuck Stem Cells Turn Hair Gray
Summary: A new study sheds light on why we tend to go gray as we age. Researchers found melanocyte stem cells get stuck as we grow older, losing the ability…
Mapping the Psyche of Extreme Altruists
Summary: While more altruistic people can be distinguished from typical adults by their unselfish traits and actions, they are generally not different in other ways. Altruistic people are no more…
Urchins are dying off across the Caribbean. Scientists now know why
Since early 2022, sea urchins have been mysteriously dying off across the Caribbean. Now scientists say they have identified the main culprit: a type of relatively large, single-celled marine microorganism…
98% of the human genome: We are finally beginning to understand the mystery of ‘dark matter’ junk DNA
Less than 2% of the three billion letters of the human genome are dedicated to proteins. Only around 20,000 distinct protein-coding genes were found to exist in the long lines of molecules…
Parasites flex their mussels to influence ecosystem function – Functional Ecologists
In this new post, Joshua Brian, a new ecological researcher working at King’s College London, UK, discusses his paper: Parasitism dramatically alters the ecosystem services provided by freshwater mussels—recently shortlisted…
Octopus, squid and cuttlefish arms evolved to ‘taste’ different compounds
People have different tastes. It turns out that octopuses, squid and cuttlefish do too. These soft-bodied cephalopods have proteins on suckers along their tentacles that allow them to “taste” by…
Bryophyte-associated nitrogen fixation in a tropical mountain cloud forest—rates and responses to climate change – Functional Ecologists
In this new post, Aya Permin, a new ecological researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, discusses her paper—High nitrogen-fixing rates associated with ground-covering mosses in a tropical mountain cloud…
