COVID-19: genetic network analysis provides ‘snapshot’ of pandemic origins

Study charts the “incipient supernova” of COVID-19 through genetic mutations as it spread from China and Asia to Australia, Europe and North America. Researchers say their methods could be used to help identify undocumented infection sources.  

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Tags: evolution genetics covid-19

‘Game-changing’ research could solve evolution mysteries

An evolution revolution has begun after scientists extracted genetic information from a 1.7 million-year-old rhino tooth – the largest and oldest genetic data to ever be recorded.  

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Tags: ancient-dna evolution genetics

AI used to test evolution’s oldest mathematical model

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to make new discoveries, and confirm old ones, about one of nature’s best-known mimics, opening up whole new directions of research in evolutionary biology.

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Tags: evolution butterfly biology

Past climate change pushed birds from the northern hemisphere to the tropics

Researchers have shown how millions of years of climate change affected the range and habitat of modern birds, suggesting that many groups of tropical birds may be relatively recent arrivals in their equatorial homes.

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Tags: evolution animal climate-change spotlight-on-sustainability-and-the-environment spotlight-on-biodiversity-conservation birds palaeoclimatology

Species ‘hotspots’ created by immigrant influx or evolutionary speed depending on climate

New research reveals that biodiversity ‘hotspots’ in the tropics produced new species at faster rates over the last 25 million years, but those in temperate regions are instead full of migrant species that likely sought refuge from shifting and cooling climates.

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Tags: evolution biodiversity spotlight-on-biodiversity-conservation mammals birds

Ancient DNA analysis unlocks secrets of Ice Age tribes in the Americas

Scientists have sequenced 15 ancient genomes spanning from Alaska to Patagonia and were able to track the movements of the first humans as they spread across the Americas at “astonishing” speed during the last Ice Age, and also how they interacted with each other in the following millennia.

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Tags: ancient-dna dna evolution human