De novo gene birth
New protein-coding genes can arise from DNA that did not previously encode a protein. Which ones become useful and persist through evolution?
Evolution
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Comb-jelly nervous systems
Did comb-jelly neurons share an origin with other animal neurons, or were nervous systems assembled independently from older cellular components?
S-RNase specificity
A Petunia flower can stop its own pollen while accepting pollen with a different mating type. How does a small team of pollen proteins distinguish so many versions of the same toxic enzyme?
Paulinella protein import
A Paulinella amoeba carries a photosynthetic compartment descended from a bacterium. It makes essential proteins outside that compartment—how do those proteins cross its inner membrane to work inside?
Periodical cicada timing
A cicada nymph can spend sixteen winters underground before preparing to emerge. What stores that history and opens the developmental gate in the right year?
Aphid wing induction
A crowded wingless pea-aphid mother can produce daughters with wings. How does a touch on the mother become a developmental instruction to her embryos?
Agaricus somatic incompatibility
Two button-mushroom colonies can meet and form a zone of dead cells. Which recognition products make their shared cytoplasm incompatible?
RNA silencing inheritance duration
A worm can stop making a fluorescent protein, and its descendants can remain dark after the original trigger is gone. What determines when the inherited silencing ends?