Carmen Leitch

New research has suggested that the ancestors of complex life, or the most ancient eukaryotic cells to have ever existed on Earth, lived in the shallow marine environments of 1.7 billion years ago, where oxygen was present. It's long been thought that eukaryotic cells emerged in environments that had low oxygen levels, or were free-floating in the open seas; but this study, which was

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Parents pass their genes down to their kids, with a child inheriting about 50% of their genome from each parent. But there is another kind of genetic code known as the epigenome that can also be inherited. Epigenetics refers to changes in the genome that can affect gene activity, but which do not change the sequence of DNA; they can include structural features, or chemical tags like methyl groups. Researchers have now used a mouse model to learn more about epigenetic inheritance, specifically as it relates to methylation, or the pattern of methyl groups that are added to DNA.

Bacteria have colonized nearly everything on the planet, and can be found in virtually any environment, including inside the human body. Oxygen is generally thought to be essential to support life, but some microbes have found ways to survive with very little of it. In the human gut microbiome for example, there are trillions of microbes, but oxygen levels are very low. Now researchers have learned more about how bacteria can survive in low-oxygen environments. The findings also revealed how this oxygen gathering process can be halted, which could open up new avenues for antibiotic development. The findings have been

The immune system is so important, but it is also important to keep it under proper control. Some people can fight off a bacterial infection and recover without needing to visit the hospital, while other individuals have a response that leads to a condition known as sepsis. In sepsis, the immune system responds to an infection, and then that response spins out of control, leading to many serious complications. Sepsis can cause organ failure and may be fatal. Now

The first people to domesticate the potato lived in the Andes, where this starchy food became a dietary staple. The indigenous people of these mountains consumed potatoes about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, and long before the food spread around the world to different societies and cultures. Now scientists have found that when the potato was introduced to this area, these folks also carried higher copy numbers of a gene related to starch digestion, giving them an advantage when it came to potato consumption. This gene is called AMY1 and it encodes for salivary amylase genes that digest starch. The Peruvian descendants of these people still carry the most copies of this gene than any other population, worldwide. The findings were