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Citation: Tanaka Y (2024) Lessons about physiological relevance learned from large-scale meta-analysis of co-expression networks in brain organoids. PLoS Biol 22(12): e3002965. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002965Published: December 18, 2024Copyright: © 2024 Yoshiaki Tanaka. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Funding: We acknowledge support from Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) (Dossier No: 285285) to YT. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain About 400,000 years ago, early humans in Europe, Asia and Africa lived alongside giant straight-tusked elephants, far bigger than their modern-day cousins. Their evolution has long been a mystery to paleontologists, but an extraordinary, enormous and near-complete skull is helping us uncover an obscure episode in the evolutionary history of these prehistoric megaherbivores. This remarkable specimen was excavated, alongside 87 prehistoric stone tools, in northern India’s Kashmir Valley in late 2000 by a team of geologists that included Drs. AM Dar and MS Lone of Government Degree College in Sopore, Dr. Ghulam Bhat of Jammu University,…

Comparative evidence for character displacement via shifts in behavior and habitat use. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54302-1 In South Florida, two Caribbean lizard species met for the first time. What followed provided some of the clearest evidence to date of evolution in action. James Stroud, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, was studying Cuban brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) in South Florida when the Puerto Rican crested anole (Anolis cristatellus), suddenly appeared in the region. An article, now published in Nature Communications, documents what happened as the two Anolis lizards adapted in response to the new competitor,…

Photo credit: Günter Bechly. Huh, a number of leading ID (intelligent design) scholars seem to have turned up recently in Cambridge, England, where they gave presentations. What was the occasion, you may wonder? You’ll have to go on wondering. So far we’ve seen Stephen Meyer and David Berlinski. (Ha, as I was writing this, a man doing some construction in our office asked me, as we introduced ourselves, if I am David Berlinski. I explained that I’m some other David.) Paleontologist Günter Bechly was also there in Cambridge, and he gave a fascinating talk about what he calls the “elephant…

Newsletter Signup – Under Article / In Page”*” indicates required fields The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the biotech industry seems boundless. Its combination with CRISPR could be the one area where AI has the most potential.Nobel prize winner and co-inventor of the CRISPR technology, Jennifer Doudna, recently highlighted the profound implications of combining AI with CRISPR in an article published by Wired. She emphasized that AI’s capacity to analyze vast genomic datasets accelerates the discovery of more efficient gene-editing tools and enhances the precision of genetic modifications.So how is AI set to transform CRISPR? Let’s find out! The synergy:…

In this series, we explore the unique experiences of field ecologists conducting research in remote field stations during the holiday season. Through personal stories and reflections, our contributors share what it’s like to conduct scientific work in remote, biodiverse environments, where the challenges of research intersect with the spirit of the holidays. From the solitude of secluded field stations to unexpected festive moments in the wild, this series highlights the resilience and dedication of ecologists and evolutionary biologists working in these remarkable regions of the world. Here, María C. Tocora and colleagues, relay their field experiences in the Galápagos, the…

Photo: A gargoyle at Cambridge University, by Steve Evans from Citizen of the World, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons. Stephen Meyer was in Cambridge, England, and besides chatting with David Berlinski, he gave an unusual “on the spot” presentation about Cambridge University itself — the sites that played key roles in scientific discoveries that helped advance the God Hypothesis. It turns out the university with its storied colleges and laboratories made quite the “non-trivial” contribution, despite the overall secular atmosphere there today. Watch and enjoy: Photo by Casey Sernaqué David KlinghofferSenior Fellow and Editor, Evolution NewsDavid Klinghoffer is…

Adult female cracking nuts using stone tools. She is being observed by an infant female (1 year old) and a young male (8 years). Credit: Tetsuro Matsuzawa A new study suggests that the fundamental abilities underlying human language and technological culture may have evolved before humans and apes diverged millions of years ago. The findings were published 5 December 2024 in the journal PeerJ. Many human behaviors are more complex than those of other animals, involving the production of elaborate sequences (such as spoken language, or tool manufacturing). These sequences include the ability to organize behaviors by hierarchical chunks, and…

A replica of an approximately 50,000-year-old Neanderthal cranium from La Ferrassie, France, compared to a recent Homo Sapiens cranium. Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum A new study published by researchers at London’s Natural History Museum and Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven has reinforced the claim that Neanderthals and modern-day humans (Homo sapiens) must be classed as separate species in order to best track our evolutionary history. Different researchers have different definitions as to what classifies as a species. It is undisputed that H. sapiens and Neanderthals originate from the same parental species, however studies into Neanderthal genetics and…

Photo credit: Jenny8lee, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons. What’s the biggest science story of the year? My vote goes to the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded for the discovery of function for a type of “junk DNA” that produces microRNA (miRNA), a crucial molecule involved in gene regulation. That so-called genetic junk would turn out to be functional was a prediction of intelligent design going back to the 1990s. On that, ID has been vindicated over and over again, now by the Nobel Committee. Our colleagues Richard Sternberg and Bill Dembski were early predictors, as…