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Category: evolution

Raindrops form ‘sandballs’ as they roll downhill, contributing more to erosion than previously thought

What happens as a raindrop impacts bare soil has been fairly well-studied, but what happens to raindrops afterward is poorly understood. We know that the initial splash of raindrops on soil contributes to erosion, but a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that the journey of the raindrop downhill might have an even bigger impact on erosion than the initial splash.

Somewhere on the “Route de la Sorge” in Ecublens, Switzerland, members of the research team observed natural raindrops hitting the surface of a hillside and noticed that they collected particles of sand as they rolled downhill. This spurred the researchers to document the event with a camera and then take the idea to the lab.

In the lab, they constructed a 1.2 meter long bed covered with dry silicate sand and tilted at an angle of 30°. The lab conditions enabled the team to properly document the phenomenon by recording the evolution of the raindrops’ shapes as they rolled and take precise measurements of the relevant parameters. They found that each raindrop formed what they refer to as “sandballs” and that they took on differing shapes, depending on the conditions, and that the sandballs can move up to 10 times more soil than the initial splash alone.

The Incredible Science of Bioprinting

Dive into the remarkable world of bioprinting in this comprehensive video. We’ll be exploring the core concepts of bioprinting — a pioneering technique that uses biological materials to create structures that mimic natural tissues, organs, and even cells. Understand the sophisticated science behind this process, and learn how bio-inks are formulated and layered to build live cells. We’ll also embark on a historical journey, tracing the origins and evolution of bioprinting, and how it is reshaping modern medicine. From overcoming organ shortages to paving the way for personalized treatments, bioprinting is revolutionizing healthcare. Join us as we unpack this fascinating technology and its promising future.

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New MacSync malware dropper evades macOS Gatekeeper checks

The latest variant of the MacSync information stealer targeting macOS systems is delivered through a digitally signed, notarized Swift application.

Security researchers at Apple device management platform Jamf say that the distribution method constitutes a significant evolution from past iterations that used less sophisticated “drag-to-Terminal” or ClickFix tactics.

“Delivered as a code-signed and notarized Swift application within a disk image named zk-call-messenger-installer-3.9.2-lts.dmg, distributed via https://zkcall.net/download, it removes the need for any direct terminal interaction,” the researchers say in a report today.

A genome-based phylogeny for Mollusca is concordant with fossils and morphology

Extreme morphological disparity within Mollusca has long confounded efforts to reconstruct a stable backbone phylogeny for the phylum. Familiar molluscan groups—gastropods, bivalves, and cephalopods—each represent a diverse radiation with myriad morphological, ecological, and behavioral adaptations. The phylum further encompasses many more unfamiliar experiments in animal body-plan evolution. In this work, we reconstructed the phylogeny for living Mollusca on the basis of metazoan BUSCO (Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs) genes extracted from 77 (13 new) genomes, including multiple members of all eight classes with two high-quality genome assemblies for monoplacophorans. Our analyses confirm a phylogeny proposed from morphology and show widespread genomic variation.

Ancient sea anemone sheds light on animal cell type evolution

One of the biggest quests in biology is understanding how every cell in an animal’s body carries an identical genome yet still gives rise to a kaleidoscope of different cell types and tissues. A neuron doesn’t look nor behave like a muscle cell but has the same DNA.

Researchers think it comes down to how cells allow different parts of the genome to be read. Controlling these permissions are regulatory elements, regions of the genome which switch genes on or off. A detailed overview of how they do this is largely restricted to a handful of classic model organisms like mice and fruit flies.

Women are better at recognizing illness in faces compared to men, study finds

Most people have either been told that they don’t look well when they were sick, or thought that someone else looked ill at some point in their lives. People often use nonverbal facial cues, such as drooping eyelids and pale lips, to detect illness in others, potentially to prevent infection in themselves. A new study, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, finds that women are more sensitive to these subtle cues than men.

In past studies, participants have been asked to rate signs of illness in the faces of others, but some of these studies used manipulated photos or people who had artificially induced sicknesses in the photos. In the new study, the team wanted to see whether naturally sick individuals would be rated as sick-looking, or as having an expression of “lassitude,” by other individuals and whether the recognition differed by sex.

To do this, the team recruited 280 undergraduate students, of which 140 were male and 140 were female, to rate 24 photos. The photos consisted of 12 different faces in times of sickness and health.

The Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment

New brain research reveals why we’re willing to go out of our way to punish people who break the rules, even when it costs us time, money, or friends. This behavior, which researchers call “altruistic punishment,” has been essential for human cooperation since ancient times. It’s the invisible glue that keeps societies fair: we enforce the rules not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

Many people voluntarily incur costs to punish violations of social norms. Evolutionary models and empirical evidence indicate that such altruistic punishment has been a decisive force in the evolution of human cooperation. We used H2 15 O positron emission tomography to examine the neural basis for altruistic punishment of defectors in an economic exchange. Subjects could punish defection either symbolically or effectively. Symbolic punishment did not reduce the defector’s economic payoff, whereas effective punishment did reduce the payoff. We scanned the subjects’ brains while they learned about the defector’s abuse of trust and determined the punishment. Effective punishment, as compared with symbolic punishment, activated the dorsal striatum, which has been implicated in the processing of rewards that accrue as a result of goal-directed actions.

Atmosphere Detected on Ultra-Hot Rocky World

“What really sets this planet apart is its anomalously low density. It is less dense than you would expect if it had an Earth-like composition,” said Dr. Johanna Teske.

What can a rocky molten exoplanet with an atmosphere teach astronomers about planetary formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated a thick atmosphere enveloping an exoplanet where previous hypotheses state it shouldn’t exist. This study has the potential to help scientists not only challenge longstanding hypotheses regarding exoplanets but also gain new insight into planetary formation and evolution.

For the study, the researchers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe TOI-561 b, which is located approximately 86 parsecs (280 light-years) from Earth and whose radius is 1.4 times of Earth. What makes TOI-561 unique is its orbit is only 11 hours long, resulting in an equilibrium temperature of approximately 2,500 Kelvin (2,227 degrees Celsius/4,040 degrees Fahrenheit).

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