Evolution of developmental mechanisms and life history in cnidarians
In response to a recent deluge of inquiries about the mythical creatures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admistration (NOAA) has attempted to clarify the situation by releasing the following statement: “no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found”.
Anciently Asexual Bdelloid Rotifers Escape Lethal Fungal Parasites by Drying Up and Blowing Away. — Wilson and Sherman explore a mechanism that asexual rotifers may utilize (dessication and aeolian dispersal) to escape the Red Queen model’s problem of coevolved pathogens/parasites in asexual lineages.
Interactions between cancer stem cells and their niche govern metastatic colonization. — Malanchi, et al., find that infiltrating tumour cells need to induce stromal periostin (POSTN) expression in the secondary target organ to initiate colonization. POSTN is required for cancer stem cell maintenance, and blocking its function prevents metastasis. POSTN recruits Wnt ligands and thereby […]
Acropora digitifera genome suggests earlier date for anemone-coral divergence of about 500 million years ago, approximately 260 million years earlier than the emergence of reef-building scleractinian corals in the fossil record.