evolutionary biology Archives | ��ϳԹ��Դ

What makes a mouse sing?

Communications Department — Thu, 07 May 2026 16:00:20 +0000

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What can singing mice say about human speech?

Jen A. Miller — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:00:07 +0000

Speech is a crowning achievement of human evolution, the skill that separates us from every other animal. So, it would stand to reason that evolving this capability required some enormous leap in brain complexity. A study published today in Nature suggests otherwise. Alston’s singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina), a small rodent from the cloud forests of...

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Secrets of evolution found in ancient plant DNA

Samuel Diamond — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:00:13 +0000

You’ve heard of deep space, but what about deep time? Today’s geneticists and evolutionary biologists can extend their investigations further back in time than ever imagined. Still, many mysteries remain. One has vexed biologists for decades. In both plants and animals, gene sequences and functions are often conserved across species over hundreds of millions of...

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Singing mice speak volumes

Samuel Diamond — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 15:00:25 +0000

All mice squeak, but only some sing. Scotinomys teguina, aka Alston’s singing mice, hail from the cloud forests of Costa Rica. More than 2,000 miles north, ��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) neuroscientists study these musically gifted mammals to better understand the evolutionary origins of vocal communication. Their research could also tell us something about strokes,...

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Dicer: Life’s ancient repair tool

Nick Wurm — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 15:00:47 +0000

Could yeast and humans be any more different? Going by looks alone, probably not. But peering into our genomes reveals surprising similarities. That’s because we share a common ancestor called LECA (last eukaryotic common ancestor). Before this single-celled organism died off around 2 billion years ago, it passed down Dicer, a key protein humans and...

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Cocktails & Chromosomes: A place of community and betrayal

Communications Department — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 11:30:55 +0000

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At the Lab: AI evolves

Communications Department — Tue, 20 May 2025 11:30:14 +0000

Today’s AI can talk the talk, but it literally can’t walk the walk. This week At the Lab, CSHL Professors Anthony Zador and Alexei Koulakov discuss the biological brain’s multibillion-year evolutionary advantage over artificial intelligence—and the new AI they built based on that very concept.

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At the Lab: Science for lovers

Communications Department — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 11:30:27 +0000

��ϳԹ��Դ Professor Zach Lippman’s research in plant prickles resulted in one of CSHL’s most publicized discoveries of 2024. It also gets at the very heart of what motivates basic bioscience research here At the Lab. You’ve read about it in The New York Times and seen it on CNN. Now, hear all...

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CSHL and global collaborators map Solanum pan-genome

Margaret Osborne — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000

AI generated voice with Zachary Lippman’s actual voice About 75 percent of the world’s food comes from 12 plants. Scientists estimate up to 30,000 species are edible. Not only does this bottleneck jeopardize our food supply if a major crop is impacted by drought or disease—it also limits our choices at the grocery store. For...

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CRISPR manipulates plants’ flower powers

Margaret Osborne — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:00:49 +0000

AI generated voice with Zachary Lippman’s actual voice Humans have appreciated the beauty of flowers for centuries. Yet, flowers aren’t just aesthetically pleasing. They also play a crucial role in plant reproduction. In all plants, a well-studied gene with a curious name, Unusual Floral Organs (UFO), orchestrates the flowering process. UFO expression hinges on another...

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Corn’s ancient ancestors are calling

Jen A. Miller — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 12:30:17 +0000

AI generated voice with Rob Martienssen’s and Thomas Gingeras’s actual voices The domestication of maize is one of the greatest examples of humankind’s impact on evolution. Early farmers’ pre-industrial plant breeding choices turned corn from a nearly inedible crop into the major global food source it is today. Now, ��ϳԹ��Դ Professors Rob...

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The next evolution of AI begins with ours

Samuel Diamond — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 12:30:54 +0000

In a sense, each of us begins life ready for action. Many animals perform amazing feats soon after they’re born. Spiders spin webs. Whales swim. But where do these innate abilities come from? Obviously, the brain plays a key role as it contains the trillions of neural connections needed to control complex behaviors. However, the...

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At the Lab Episode 25: How maize became corn

Communications Department — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 11:30:36 +0000

The journey from maize to corn isn’t just about going from farm to table. It starts with an evolutionary event that has puzzled plant biologists for decades. This week At the Lab, CSHL Professor, HHMI Investigator, and Genetics Society Medal recipient Rob Martienssen unravels a 4,000-year-old mystery in just over three minutes.

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One Experiment: The devil in the greenhouse

Nick Wurm — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 11:30:47 +0000

Solanum atropurpureum, seen here. Image: Blaine Fitzgerald, Lippman lab" data-description="" />Tomatoes and potatoes have a lot of relatives. Their nightshade genus includes over 1,500 distinct species. But not all are as friendly as those beloved staple foods. Lurking amongst them is a prickly purple devil with a supervillainous moniker. Its name? Malevolence. Some plants just hate us. Malevolence is covered in sharp, 1-to-1.5-inch-long barbs—the largest...

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Corn’s ‘missing link’

Margaret Osborne — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:00:25 +0000

Teosinte Pollen Drive (TPD) is a selfish genetic system in maize-teosinte hybrids, which allows only pollen with both toxin and antidote to survive. Here, we see the pollen-producing part of the maize-teosinte hybrid. Image: Jon Cahn/Martienssen lab" data-description="" />��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) has begun to unravel a mystery millennia in the making. Our story begins 9,000 years ago. It was then that maize was first domesticated in the Mexican lowlands. Some 5,000 years later, the crop crossed with a species from the Mexican highlands called teosinte mexicana. This resulted in cold adaptability....

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Every rose has its thorns … or does it?

Margaret Osborne — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 18:00:23 +0000

According to Greek mythology, red roses first appeared when Aphrodite pricked her foot on a thorn, spilling blood on a white rose. Since then, roses’ thorns have captured the imaginations of countless poets and forlorn lovers. But they aren’t the only plants with these dangerous protrusions, technically called prickles. Prickles have evolved independently in species...

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At the Lab Episode 16: Bats!

Communications Department — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 16:00:17 +0000

Sometimes one word says it all. Case in point: Bats. This week At the Lab, we hear from CSHL Professor W. Richard McCombie about the curious origin story behind a recent headline-making study his lab conducted with Professor Adam Siepel, postdoc Armin Scheben, and the American Museum of Natural History.

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At the Lab Episode 8: Birds of a feather

Communications Department — Tue, 21 May 2024 11:30:19 +0000

Cappuccino anyone? This week At the Lab, CSHL Professor Adam Siepel introduces the capuchino seedeater—a South American subspecies known for its ultraviolet plumage. Join us on a voyage across evolution’s “islands of differentiation” to find out how these birds got their distinct colors.

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An evolutionary mystery 125 million years in the making

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 19:00:44 +0000

Plant genomics has come a long way since ��ϳԹ��Դ (CSHL) helped sequence the first plant genome. But engineering the perfect crop is still, in many ways, a game of chance. Making the same DNA mutation in two different plants doesn’t always give us the crop traits we want. The question is why...

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A quiz for the ages

Communications Department — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 12:30:33 +0000

{“questions”:{“4ib35”:{“id”:”4ib35″,”mediaType”:”image”,”answerType”:”text”,”imageCredit”:””,”image”:”https:\/\/www.cshl.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Pancreatic_tissue_with_CAR_T_cells.jpg”,”imageId”:”67343″,”video”:””,”imagePlaceholder”:””,”imagePlaceholderId”:””,”title”:”Modified T cells may hold the key to the mythical fountain of youth. CSHL scientists discovered just one dose is enough to rejuvenate older mice. What happened to these mice after T cell treatment?”,”desc”:”Assistant Professor Corina Amor Vegas discovered T cells can be reprogrammed to fight aging. After using them to eliminate specific cells in...

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evolutionary biology Archives | ���ϳԹ���Դ