Team pinpoints the origin story of SARS-CoV-2

A reconstruction of the evolutionary origins of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, shows its lineage could hold other nasty viruses.

Sara LaJeunesse-Penn State • futurity
July 28, 2020 ~7 min

Why frogs are green to the bone

Why are frogs green? Their color comes from a clever biochemical workaround that combines an odd protein choice and a potential poison in the blood.

Karl Bates-Duke • futurity
July 14, 2020 ~6 min


Do your genes make you feel insecure in love?

There may be a connection between genes involved in the opioid system and feelings of insecurity in romantic relationships, researchers find.

Katherine Gombay-McGill • futurity
July 7, 2020 ~5 min

Humans and monkeys think more alike than we knew

Both monkeys and humans have a way of thinking that involves recursion, a process of arranging words, phrases, or symbols to convey complex ideas.

Yasmin Anwar-UC Berkeley • futurity
July 1, 2020 ~6 min

Gardenias show how plants became great chemists

Sequencing the gardenia genome shows how plants evolved to re-use tricks from their genetic toolbox to create new chemicals.

Charlotte Hsu-Buffalo • futurity
June 25, 2020 ~9 min

Way before stars form, space clouds hold building blocks of life

"This tells us that the basic organic chemistry needed for life is present in the raw gas prior to the formation of stars and planets."

Daniel Stolte-Arizona • futurity
June 16, 2020 ~9 min

Ancient crocs walked on two legs the size of ours

Fossil footprints in what is now South Korea are evidence that some species of ancient crocodiles walked on two feet.

U. Queensland • futurity
June 11, 2020 ~4 min

Gene makes plants produce less pollen

Darwin observed that some plants produce less pollen (and some animals less sperm). New research clarifies how that can be an advantage.

U. Zurich • futurity
June 10, 2020 ~6 min


Chicken ‘memories’ ease return to ancestral homeland

A study with chickens from Tibet shows that organisms have a kind of "memory" of their ancestral homes that makes adaptation to environmental change easier.

Jim Erickson-Michigan • futurity
June 2, 2020 ~8 min

Millipede fossil takes ‘world’s oldest bug’ title

The fossil researchers have dubbed the "world's oldest bug" is older than any fossil of an insect, arachnid, or related creepy-crawly.

Monica Kortsha-Texas • futurity
May 29, 2020 ~6 min

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