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For decades, many scientists have confidently dismissed the vast majority of the human DNA as useless evolutionary garbage. Yet a recently published scientific paper in Cell, one of the world’s most prestigious biology journals, declares a “paradigm shift” against the idea that huge portions of the human genome are merely “junk DNA.”After the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, a startling discovery was made. Only about 2 percent of the entire human genome codes for proteins. Scientists naturally asked, what is the other 98 percent doing?Evolutionary biology was ready with an answer. For decades, they had claimed that the...

As a biologist, Dr. Ari Berkowitz is concerned that more people aren’t aware of a fundamental fact about biological sex. We might expect that a biologist would insist on the objective nature of “male” and “female” as innate, fixed, and unchanging biological realities. Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, for example, argues for sex realism, a position which, he says, derailed his plans to become a biology professor.But no. According to Berkowitz, “Biological sex is as nuanced as gender.” He’s written a whole book about it. The thesis is in the title: The Binary Delusion: How Biology Defies the Myth of Two...

For the first time in three decades, paleontologists are about to revisit one of North America's most remarkable troves of ancient fossils: The bones of tens of thousands of animals piled at the bottom of a sinkhole-type cave. Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming is 85 feet (25 meters) deep and almost impossible to see until you're standing right next to it. Over tens of thousands of years, many, many animals—including now-extinct mammoths, short-faced bears, American lions and American cheetahs—shared the misfortune of not noticing the 15-foot-wide (4 meters) opening until they were plunging to their deaths. Now, the U.S. Bureau...

A new study, "Range and diet diversity in the Pleistocene American 'cheetah,' Miracinonyx trumani," was published in the scientific journal Current Biology on Friday. Using the tiniest of bones, including some found in Wyoming's Natural Trap Cave, the diet and DNA of the American cheetah-like cat have been revealed in astonishing detail... "It's actually most closely related to the living mountain lion, and those are both sister species most closely related to the jaguarundi," she said. "The three of them together are distantly related to modern cheetah."... Some of the best Late Pleistocene specimens [various species] ever found have come...

While one Oregon school social worker lost an appeal after displaying children’s books in his office affirming biological sex, over a dozen books sit on the very same school district’s children's library shelves that are considered too explicit for even adult prison bookshelves. Key Takeaways: * Social worker Roderick Theis was fired from Oregon's Intermountain Education Service District after displaying books affirming biological sex in his office behind his desk. * The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, claimed that displaying the books was not speech protected by the First Amendment. * Two of the books Theis...

Two new studies examining gray wolves in California paint a complex picture of life on California’s ranching landscapes: wolves eat cattle more than anything else and the presence of the predators causes significant stress among livestock. ... wolves from the Lassen and Harvey packs in northeastern California were primarily eating cattle. They collected scat samples during the summer months of 2022 and 2023 and found 72% of wolf scat contained cattle DNA. .... Wolves are a state and federally recognized endangered species. The first confirmed wolf entered California in 2011, following a nearly 100-year absence. The California Department of Fish...

Studying old paintings can give us a surprising glimpse of historic natural history. In 1611, the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Elder finished his epic allegorical painting Air. In it, he depicted the Muse of Astronomy, Urania, reclining on a cloud as a menagerie of feathered birds surrounds her. But while studying the animals in the picture, one researcher spotted something far more intriguing: in the top right corner, there appeared to be a bat carrying a bird in its mouth. For most people, this might not mean much. But for the ecologist Pedro Romero-Vidal it set his mind racing,...

The Florida couple at the center of an IVF mix-up have vowed to remain their baby girl’s “permanent” parents after hammering out an agreement with her biological parents. Tiffany Score and Steven Mills have confirmed the identities of the genetic parents of their 6-month-old daughter, Shea, and have “come to a mutually devised custody agreement” with them, according to court papers filed in Orange County court Friday.

In 1681, the last dodo bird on the planet breathed its last breath. But that was not the final chapter of the bird’s story. Some 300 years later, botanists on Mauritius—the island where the dodo had lived—noticed that a certain species of tree was rapidly dying off. Tambalacoque trees had historically grown in abundance on Mauritius, but by the 1970s only 13 remained. And all of those remaining were thought to be around 300 years old. Even though they were producing fruit containing seeds each year, none of the seeds were sprouting into saplings. This meant that no new Tambalacoque...

A blue-glowing spider was only the first clue. Deep in Angola, scientists uncovered a hidden world of species still waiting for names after long trek. A crowned crab spider that glows bright blue under ultraviolet light. An armored cricket that can squirt defensive fluid. A ladybird orb-web spider that mimics a toxic beetle. These are among the dozens of species potentially unknown to science discovered during a February 2026 expedition to Angola’s remote Lisima plateau. The survey, called the Cassai Life Atlas, was conducted by The Wilderness Project, an organization founded by South African explorer Steve Boyes. The team of...

https://thenewamerican.com/?p=441321 You may recall an article by a couple of bioethics professors that appeared a few months back in a science journal and caused more than a minor kerfuffle for proposing that it might be beneficial to the planet to spread lone star ticks around. Why? Because these ticks spread what is called the alpha-gal syndrome (AGS). It takes its name from galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, a sugar present in the meat of most mammals. The immune systems of tick-bite victims can develop allergic antibodies to the meat-sugar and can then have a severe allergic reaction when they eat red meat (beef, pork,...

The machine is technically called PUPER, which stands for “preservation of the uterus in perfusion.” But González’s colleague Xavier Santamaria says the team has adopted a nickname for it: “We call it ‘Mother.’” He sees a future in which a machine like “Mother” will be able to fully gestate a human, all the way from embryo to newborn. It could offer a new path to parenthood for people who don’t have a uterus, for example, or who are not able to get pregnant for other reasons.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is set to invalidate about 1,700 driver’s licenses held by transgender residents and roughly as many birth certificates under a new law that goes beyond Republican-imposed restrictions in other states on listing gender identities in government documents. The bill prohibits documents from listing any sex other than the one assigned birth and invalidates any that reflect a conflicting gender identity. Florida, Tennessee and Texas also don’t allow driver’s licenses to reflect a trans person’s gender identity, and at least eight states besides Kansas have policies that bar trans residents from changing their birth certificates. But...

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO): "Can men get pregnant?" Dr. Nisha Verma: "I'm not really sure what the goal of the question is." Hawley: "The goal is just to establish a biological reality. You said just a moment ago that science and evidence should control, not politics. So, let's test that. Can men get pregnant?" Dr. Verma: "I take care of people with many identities...I'm also someone here to represent the complex experiences of my patients. I don't think polarized language or questions serve that goal..." Hawley: "It is not polarizing to say that there is a scientific difference between men...

Cladosporium sphaerospermum, cultured at the Coimbra University Hospital Centre in Portugal. (Rui Tomé/Atlas of Mycology, used with permission) The Chernobyl exclusion zone may be off-limits to humans, but ever since the Unit Four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded nearly 40 years ago, other forms of life have not only moved in but survived, adapted, and appeared to thrive. Part of that may be the lack of humans… but for one organism, at least, the ionizing radiation lingering inside the reactor's surrounding structures may be an advantage. There, clinging to the interior walls of one of the most...

Alligator gars: putting the “gar” in gargantuan for 100 million years. Dr Solomon David, AKA The Gar Guy, said it’s the largest alligator gar he’s ever seen in the field. Image courtesy of Dr Solomon David ================================================================== The Mississippi River floodplains are home to one of Earth’s most impressive river monsters: the alligator gar. Known to science as Atractosteus spatula, it is the largest of the gar species alive today and among the largest fish in North America. Dr Solomon David, AKA “The Gar Guy”, has had more experience than most with these freshwater giants. So, when he messages you...

One year after the discovery that golden mussels had invaded the Delta, thick colonies coat boats and piers and threaten water supplies for cities and farms. Yet the state has no specific funding or plans to tackle harms in the heart of the invasion.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s liaison to China is the daughter of a computer scientist building a genealogical database for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who has considerable ties to Chinese intelligence and military personnel, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered. Amy Tong has held multiple cabinet positions in Newsom’s administration, such as serving as the Government Operations Agency secretary, and is now listed as “senior counselor to the governor,” government records show. Newsom has repeatedly sent Tong to negotiate with CCP officials and Chinese intelligence personnel, and “appointed Tong to lead people-to-people exchanges with China,” according to a July...

Bearded dragons are famous for their ability to change sex depending on heat and genes. Two new genome projects have revealed the likely master gene, Amh, behind this switch — finally solving a reptile mystery that has baffled scientists for years. Credit: Shutterstock Scientists have finally cracked one of the strangest mysteries in reptile biology: how bearded dragons decide their sex. Breakthrough Genomes Reveal Bearded Dragon’s Secrets Two separate research teams have now released near-complete reference genomes of the central bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps), a lizard species that ranges widely across central eastern Australia and is also a favorite pet...