Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital found that droplets within cells, called condensates, are required for ependymoma formation, creating new opportunities for drug development.

Chemists at UCL (University College London) have shown how two of biology’s most fundamental ingredients, RNA (ribonucleic acid) and amino acids, could have spontaneously joined together at the origin of life four billion years ago.

Every living species on Earth has a unique geographical range, with some being widespread and others being very narrow. Several factors shape a species’ range size – and one of them is the evolutionary age of a species. To investigate how evolutionary age is related to present-day range size, a research team led by scientists from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University and Naturalis Biodiversity Center compared over 26,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, reef fishes, and palms.

Industrial emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) in production and daily life contribute to acid rain formation, which degrades soil and aquatic ecosystems while impairing human respiratory health.

Lemurs are among the best-known representatives of Madagascar's animal kingdom. They make up more than 15 percent of all primate species living today – even though the island covers less than one percent of the earth's land surface. An international research team involving the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) has now shown: The species diversity of lemurs is not the result of a single large radiation, as is often assumed for animals on islands. Instead, the species evolved in multiple successive radiations – up to the middle and later Pleistocene (around 500,000 years ago). It is also remarkable that interbreeding between different lemur species – hybridizations – do not represent evolutionary dead ends, but have even contributed to the emergence of new species (Nature Communications).

A study led by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz provides the first direct evidence that species that never interact can profoundly influence each other's evolution, challenging a long-held focus on direct interactions in evolutionary biology.