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Episode 85: February 2023

In this episode, we hear about a possible link between mitochondrial DNA and personality, why humans are mostly right-handed, circadian clocks and sunflowers, hairless mammals, and how some herbivores deal with plant toxins.
Podcast
0:000:00
Episode 85
Miriam Lindenmeier (CC BY 4.0)

Chapters

  1. 0:33
    A recipe for hair loss
    Mammals without body hair evolved this trait independently, but relied on the same set of genes to guide the process
    This chapter is based on the following content
  2. 8:25
    Left vs right
    It is not easy to explain why humans are predominantly right-handed
    This chapter is based on the following content
  3. 16:02
    Going round in circles
    Sunflowers need to keep track of time to develop and reproduce
    This chapter is based on the following content
    • Research Article by Carine M Marshall, Veronica L Thompson ... Stacey L Harmer
    • Insight by Young-Joon Park, Pil Joon Seo
  4. 23:53
    Honeybees vs plant toxins
    Honeybees use microbes to break down the toxins found in pollen and nectar
    This chapter is based on the following content
  5. 29:33
    Personality test
    There is a relationship between mitochondrial DNA copy number and various personality traits
    This chapter is based on the following content

Related

    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    Complementary evolution of coding and noncoding sequence underlies mammalian hairlessness

    Amanda Kowalczyk, Maria Chikina, Nathan Clark
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    The evolution and biological correlates of hand preferences in anthropoid primates

    Kai R Caspar, Fabian Pallasdies ... Sabine Begall
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Plant Biology

    The circadian clock controls temporal and spatial patterns of floral development in sunflower

    Carine M Marshall, Veronica L Thompson ... Stacey L Harmer
    1. Ecology
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Host-microbiome metabolism of a plant toxin in bees

    Erick VS Motta, Alejandra Gage ... Nancy Moran
    1. Epidemiology and Global Health
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    Personality traits are consistently associated with blood mitochondrial DNA copy number estimated from genome sequences in two genetic cohort studies

    Richard F Oppong, Antonio Terracciano ... Jun Ding