Evolution

News Evolution

• Miniproteins appeared “from nowhere”
  

  Evolutionarily young miniproteins are unique in humans, and researchers have recently discovered thousands of them. Writing in Molecular Cell, Norbert Hübner and colleagues from the BIH and other institutions describe the origins of these tiny proteins and explain that they probably influence import more

• Novel way to identify still unknown pathogens
  

  Certain genes can exist in different, functionally divergent variants in the individuals of a species. If they lead to clear differences, for example in a phenotype or susceptibility to disease, this is known in biology as a polymorphism. Typical examples are a number of genes whose variants are res more

• Discovery of world’s oldest DNA breaks record by one million years
  

  Microscopic fragments of environmental DNA were found in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, researchers discovered the fragments are one million years older than the previous record for DNA sampled from a Siberian mammoth bone.  The ancient DNA has been used to ma more