92 results
92 results for: mutations
- Genetics
Scorpion’s sting evolved from insects’ defensive proteins
With a single genetic mutation, an insect’s defensive proteins can be transformed into a toxin that gives scorpions their signature sting, a new study shows.
- Life
Many genes in dolphins and bats evolved in the same way to allow echolocation
Widespread changes scattered across the genomes of distantly related species cooperated to craft the trait.
- Animals
Leaping land fish avoids predators by blending in
The Pacific leaping blenny avoids being eaten by predators by blending into its rocky habitat.
- Plants
Dastardly daisies
This flower isn’t just any old sex cheat. It can be sexually deceptive three ways and in 3-D.
- Animals
The daemon cat that never was
Buried in a volume published in 1904 is a description of a new species of cat found in Transcaucasia: Felis daemon, the Black Wild Cat.
- Animals
In the Eye of the Tiger
Global spread of Asian tiger mosquito could fuel outbreaks of tropical disease in temperate regions.
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- Animals
Lost to history: The “churk”
More than a half-century ago, researchers at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center outside Washington, D.C., engaged in some creative barnyard breeding. Their goal was the development of fatherless turkeys — virgin hens that would reproduce via parthenogenesis. Along the way, and ostensibly quite by accident, an interim stage of this work resulted in a rooster-fathered hybrid that the scientists termed a churk.
- Life
Molecular Evolution
Investigating the genetic books of life reveals new details of 'descent with modification' and the forces driving it.
- Animals
Aphids make their own bright colors
The insects’ ancestors adapted fungal DNA for manufacturing vital compounds.
- Genetics
Dog gene heeds call of the wild
Domesticated dogs passed a gene for dark fur color to their wild cousins.
- Health & Medicine
Genome 10K: A new ark
Featured blog: Researchers are working to catalog the DNA sequences of just about every vertebrate genus.
