An extremophile is an organism that grows best under physical or chemical conditions humans consider extreme. Examples thrive at high heat, intense cold, strong acidity, high salinity, crushing pressure or severe radiation. Most known extremophiles are microbes, although some animals and fungi tolerate remarkable limits. NOAA’s introduction to extremophiles connects them with hydrothermal vents and…
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Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have identified a master developmental clock in the tiny worm C. elegans, revealing how cells coordinate timed bursts of gene activity that guide growth. The work, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points to a shared timing system that helps an animal move through development in…
A study in Science has opened a rare window into one of evolution’s deepest mysteries: how complex animals began to take over Earth’s oceans before the famous Cambrian explosion. The fossils, found in southwest China, include evidence for animals linked to deuterostomes, the great branch of life that includes humans and our closest invertebrate relatives.…
A study in Current Biology found that survival in the wild can depend on the strength of everyday social ties. In free-ranging female baboons, the animals with stronger and more stable bonds lived longer than females whose relationships were weaker or less consistent. The finding comes from decades of fieldwork on baboons, animals whose societies…
