EurekAlert! News by Subject: Biology - Home

Biology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 26-Oct-2026 11:16 ET (26-Oct-2026 15:16 GMT/UTC)

AI tool reveals climate shifts may have fueled bursts of bird evolution

University of Michigan
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers used an AI tool called Skelevision to demonstrate that birds in the group Passeriformes evolved in rapid evolutionary bursts that coincided with climate shifts throughout Earth's history.

Journal: Nature Ecology & Evolution

Scientists map how the flu virus rewires the human cell from the inside

European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The influenza A virus infects millions of people each year and has the potential to cause pandemics, making it an important target for biomedical research. Scientists have gained new insights into how this virus hijacks the host cell’s molecular machinery by using a technique that maps protein-protein interactions directly inside the cell. The new findings could help identify novel targets for future drug discovery and vaccine development.

Journal: Nature Microbiology

Generating red blood cell-like cells from canine iPSCs

Osaka Metropolitan University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have generated red blood cell-like cells from canine iPS cells and developed a fluorescent reporter system to track their formation in real time.

Journal: Stem Cells Translational Medicine
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 2022 Osaka Metropolitan University Strategic Research Promotion Project, G-7 Scholarship Foundation

First identification of a Mosasaur Premaxilla in Japan

Okayama University of Science
Reports and Proceedings

Researchers from Okayama University of Science and collaborating institutions have identified four previously unrecognized mosasaur fossil bones from a rock collected about 30 years ago in Osaka Prefecture, including the first confirmed mosasaur premaxilla ever found in Japan. The fossils, recovered during a reexamination of museum specimens, also display unique anatomical features that differ from those of known mosasaurs, suggesting the possibility of a previously unknown species. The discovery demonstrates the scientific importance of revisiting existing museum collections and provides new insights into Late Cretaceous marine ecosystems in the northwestern Pacific.

Organic fertilizer compounds help biochar lock cadmium in contaminated soil

Shenyang Agricultural University Collaborative Journals
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Cadmium contamination in agricultural soil threatens crop safety because the toxic metal can be absorbed by plant roots and enter the food chain. A new study shows that combining biochar with selected components from organic fertilizer could help convert cadmium into less mobile forms, with larger organic molecules generally providing stronger protection.

Journal: Agricultural Ecology and Environment

An asteroid doomed the dinosaurs. But did it drive tuna evolution?

Yale University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A long-held theory suggests that the asteroid strike that killed off non-avian dinosaurs — and most large marine predators — 66 million years ago created an ecological opportunity that spurred the rapid evolution of tunas, and other large, fast, and warm-blooded predators.

The idea is that tunas and their carnivorous counterparts filled a niche left by their massive, predatory predecessors, much like how mammals replaced the world’s non-avian dinosaurs after the K-Pg extinction event.

But that theory doesn’t quite hold water, according to a new Yale study that provides new insights into how these economically important fishes evolved their imposing size, speed, and ability to regulate their body temperatures in cold seas.

Wild snapdragons paint themselves in subtle shades to attract bees

John Innes Centre
Peer-Reviewed Publication

John Innes Centre researchers in the group of Professor Enrico Coen working alongside colleagues in Austria, China and Australia, investigated shades of yellow in wild populations of snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus).

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: UKRI/BBSRC

Researchers identify class of 'oddball' meteorite that killed the dinosaurs

University of British Columbia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Earth scientists are slowly closing in on the class of impactor that caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event — new research indicates it wasn’t a garden-variety space rock.

Journal: Science Advances

Helical opto-thermoviscous flow-driven microrotation enables multiview 3D microscopy

Light Publishing Center, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics And Physics, CAS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Contact-free and object-agnostic 3D rotation at the micro/nanoscale is playing an increasingly important role in advanced imaging, biology, and microrobotics. Towards this goal, Scientist in Germany developed an opto-thermoviscous micromanipulation strategy that enables robust out-of-plane spinning and sheathless focusing in highly viscous media. The technique opens new avenues for all-optical manipulation-enabled multiview 3D microscopy and advanced biological imaging.

Journal: Light: Science & Applications
Funder: European Research Council, Germany's Excellence Strategy, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation