This Week in Evolution

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.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent RacanielloS

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•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server •Heimdallarchaeial ancestry of eukaryotes (Nature)

Nels – Juneteenth issue of Cell – collection of essays from black and brown scientists

Vincent – Tara Oceans

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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?

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server •Mystery of mouse mummies (bioRxiv)

Nels – Zoonomia Vincent – SeaPhages

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Nels and Vincent discuss the observation that cells on a boundary of a solid tumor have higher growth rates compared to those in the center and how to model this difference using genome sequencing data.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server •Evolutionary models of solid tumor growth (Nat Ecol Evol)

Nels – TWiV 1000 Vincent – The dream of wiping out polio might need a rethink

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Nels and Vincent review a study of the dogs of Chernobyl which reveals that genetically distinct populations with different amounts of western breed contributions to their genomes, the first step in assessing the effects of exposure to long-term ionizing radiation.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server •The dogs of Chernobyl (Science Adv) •What the dogs of Chernobyl can teach us (Stat) •Letters read on TWiEVO 88

Nels – Hellbent documentary and Insufficient evidence for natural selection associated with the Black Death Vincent – BioRender

Walter – Oded Rechavi and interview

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Nathan joins Nels and Vincent to discuss his approach to understanding how species adopt novel traits to overcome challenges, and its application to identifying coding and noncoding sequence changes that underlie mammalian hairlessness.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

Guest: Nathan Clark

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•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server •Gene loss in marine mammals (TWiEVO 34) •Gene change underlying mammalian hair loss (eLife) •Letters read on TWiEVO 87

Nels – Local news coverage of Amanda, Maria, and Nathan's paper Vincent – Discovering Retroviruses by Anna Marie Skalka Nathan – Genomics of Secondarily Temperate Adaptation in the Only Non-Antarctic Icefish

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Nels and Vincent discuss how evolution of changes in stop codon assignment might occur, and a novel mechanism for altering the meaning of translation stop codons discovered in a trypanosomatid with the apropos name, Blastocrithidia nonstop.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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•Join the MicrobeTV Discord server •Novel stop codon reassignment mechanisms (Nature)

Nels – Protein Synthesis: An epic on the cellular level

Vincent – Widespread stop-codon recoding in bacteriophages may regulate translation of lytic genes discussed on TWiM 277

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Nels and Vincent discuss the use of genome sequence data for over 4,000 domestic, semi-feral, and wild canids to understand the genetic drivers of canine behavior.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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• Genetic drivers of canine diversification (Cell)
• Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Nels – Ghosts of Science Past Still Haunt Us by C. Brandon Ogbunu Vincent – The Biggest Ideas in the Universe by Sean Carroll

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Nels and Vincent review the use of ancient DNA to identify loci that may have been under selection during the Black Death by studying populations before, during, and after the pandemic.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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• Evolution of immune genes associated with Black Death (Nature)
• ERAP2 and respiratory disease (medRxiv)
• Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Nels – Interview with Paul Turner in Current Biology and Map of the World if you are a fish Vincent – Smallpox and its eradication

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Florian Maderspacher from Current Biology joins Nels and Vincent to discuss a special issue of the journal on birds.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

Guest: Florian Maderspacher

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• Current Biology Birds Special Issue
• Scott Edwards bikes across the US (Audubon)
• Support Diversity Issues in Evolution (Go Fund Me)
• Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Florian – Favorite birds of authors/contributors in Birds issue Nels –Loss of avian intromittent organs as a sperm competition strategy: a race to be last Vincent – Malaria at the Bronx Zoo (TWiP 110)

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Nels and Vincent consider evidence that a single amino acid change in the TKTL1 gene might have led to greater neurogenesis in the frontal cortex of modern humans compared with Neanderthals.

Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello

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• Human TKTL1 implies greater neurogenesis (Science)
• Everyone's a little bit Neanderthal (TWiEVO 8)
• Tragic gene flow from Neanderthals (TWiV 676)
• Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Nels – Unusual display of elements Vincent – Sykdomspulsen and summary

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