Nels and Vincent discuss the genome sequence of an ancient wooly mammoth, which shows that the three-dimensional architecture of the DNA can persist after 50,000 years.
Nels and Vincent discuss how behavioural individuality determines infection risk in clonal ant colonies.
TWiEVO 97: Germs trapping worms
- January 31, 2024
- Tagged as: adhesive net, ecosystem, evolution, fungus, mutation, natural selection, nematode, predator, prey
Nels and Vincent review a study of the key processes required for the different stages of fungal carnivory by a nematode-trapping fungus.
TWiEVO 96: Going bananas over the origins of corn
- December 26, 2023
- Tagged as: bananas, evolution, introgression, maize, natural selection, teosinte
Nels and Vincent discuss the origins of two modern day agriculturally important plants: a role for two different wild teosintes in making modern maize, and the origin and evolution of the triploid cultivated banana genome.
Nels and Vincent discuss how the rewetting of seasonally dried soils, a critical event in Mediterranean grasslands that reactivates dormant soil microorganisms, leading to pulses of carbon and nitrogen mineralization, and is accompanied by a bloom of viral diversity, followed by extensive viral community turnover.
TWiEVO 94: A bacteria, a phage, and a selfish element walk into a cryptomonad
- September 29, 2023
- Tagged as: algae, cryptomodad, cryptomonad, endosymbiont, evolution, mutation, natural selection, nucleomorph, plastid
Nels and Vincent take apart an amazing symbiosis consisting of two bacteria, one bacteriophage, and seven different genomes all within a single-celled alga.
TWiEVO 93: Faster than a speeding bacteria
- August 24, 2023
- Tagged as: adaptation, cell size, evolution, JCVI-syn3B, minimal cell, natural selection
Nels and Vincent review a collision of synthetic biology and experimental evolution, using a minimal synthetic bacterial cell with only 473 genes, the smallest genome of any known organism that can be grown in lab culture.
Nels and Vincent explain a study of how interspecies competition between two algae influences evolution of metabolism and size.
TWiEVO 91: Meet your very distant cousins
- July 17, 2023
- Tagged as: Archaea, Asgard archaea, eukaryote, evolution, natural selection, phylogenetics
Nels and Vincent discuss new findings using phylogenetic approaches about how complex eukaryotic cells emerged from prokaryotic ancestors, which firmly place eukaryotes as a clade nested within the Asgard archaea.
Nels and Vincent provide insights into the mystery of mouse mummies on the summits of >6000 m Andean volcanoes, including whether they were living there and if so why?
