Jorune Sakalauskaite, Søren H Andersen ... Beatrice Demarchi
Ancient proteomes from tiny shell ornaments were successfully characterised for the first time, showing the unexpected use of mother-of-pearl from local riverine molluscs in both coastal and inland prehistoric sites.
Differences in the response of cardiomyocytes to oxygen deprivation in humans and chimpanzees may explain why humans are more prone to certain heart diseases.
Animals living alongside humans have multiple copies of the gene for alpha-amylase, the enzyme that breaks down starchy foods, and high levels of this protein in their saliva.
Comprehensive analyses of amylase duplications and salivary activity across mammals underscore the importance of recurrent copy number variation as a flexible and rapid evolutionary mechanism.
Oliver WM Rauhut, Helmut Tischlinger, Christian Foth
A new taxon from the Late Jurassic of southern Germany represents the second volant bird known from that time period and documents the improvement of flapping flight in bird evolution.
Environmental heterogeneity can dramatically reduce the efficacy of selection and alter the neutral evolutionary dynamics in microbial range expansions.
David William Kikuchi, Anna Dornhaus ... Thomas N Sherratt
In richer, more even communities, foragers form broad categories among their food resources that can select for convergence among signals, including mimetic resemblances.
Elizabeth ML Duxbury, Jonathan P Day ... Ben Longdon
A history of coevolution increases genetic variation in the susceptibility of Drosophila to viruses, largely by introducing major-effect resistance polymorphisms into populations.