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What do building a pyramid, going to the moon, pedaling a two-person canoe, or dancing the waltz have in common? All of these actions are the result of a common goal between many partners and lead to a sense of shared obligation, known as “mutual commitment”. This ability to cooperate is universal in humans and certain animal species, such as the great apes. However, humans seem to have a unique predisposition and strong desire for social interaction that may be one component of the emergence of language, according to the study authors. How do our social interactions differ from other species? And why? To answer this question, an international team analyzed the interactions of 31 children between the ages of 2 and 4 in four preschools in the United States (10 hours per child). There are only a few quantitative analyzes of the spontaneous social interactions of children aged 2 and 4 years when interacting with peers, even though this age is a critical age for the develop...

The strange creatures that raged in Earth’s oceans more than half a billion years ago appear to be the earliest vertebrate relatives we’ve found to date. They are called yunnanozoans, dating from the Early Cambrian about 518 million years ago. The cartilaginous features found in their fossil remains are comparable to those of modern vertebrates, paleontologists have found. This suggests that these animals were stem vertebrates, an extinct sister group to the original group of modern vertebrates. “The pharyngeal curvature is a key innovation that likely contributed to the evolution of the vertebrate jaw and braincase,” wrote the team led by Qingyi Tian of Nanjing University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China. “The pharyngeal skeletons of controversial Cambrian animals called yunnanozoans may contain the oldest fossil evidence limiting the early evolution of arches, but their correlation to vertebrates is debated. “By examining additional spe...

The human genome is littered with “selfish genetic elements”, which do not appear to benefit the host, but only seek to reproduce. Selfish genetic elements can wreak havoc by, for example, distorting sex ratios, impairing fertility, causing dangerous mutations, and potentially even causing population extinction. Biologists at the University of Rochester, including Amanda Larracuente, professor of biology, and Daven Presgraves, University Dean’s Professor of Biology, are using population genomics for the first time to explain the evolution and consequences of known selfish genetic elements. as Segregation Distortion ( SD ). In a paper published in the journal eLife the researchers reported that SD has led to dramatic changes in chromosomal organization and genetic diversity. Sequencing the genome first Researchers use fruit flies as model organisms to study SD , a selfish genetic element that deviates from the rules of just genetic transmission. Fruit flies share ab...