This week's episode of Best of Quirx & Quirx with Bob McDonald:
Blue whales are genetically healthy but are interbreeding with fin whales, study suggests
Strange Whales and Quarks8:52 Blue whales are genetically healthy, but they are mating with fin whales, study finds
Researchers sequenced the genome of a blue whale that washed up on Newfoundland in 2014 and used it to conduct a comparative study of blue whales in the North Atlantic. Led by Mark Engstrom, curator emeritus at the Royal Ontario Museum, the team found that, despite their small population, the whales are genetically diverse and connected across the North Atlantic. Surprisingly, however, blue whales in this group average about 3.5% of the genetic diversity of fin whales. The study was published in the journal Conservation Genetics.
In 2014, Royal Ontario Museum curator emeritus Mark Engstrom and his team dissected the blue whale's carcass in Winterhouse Brook, Newfoundland. They have now sequenced its genome, publishing their findings in a new study. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)
What will happen to our solar system when the Sun evolves into a white dwarf?
Weird Phenomena and Quarks 7:50What will happen to our solar system when the Sun evolves into a white dwarf?
Over billions of years, our sun and similar-sized stars first expand into red giants and then contract into small, dense white dwarfs. A new study using the James Webb Space Telescope investigated a nearby white dwarf system to understand the fate of its planets. Astronomer Susan Mullally says the research could also help predict the fate of Earth. The study will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The James Webb Space Telescope captured this image of the Southern Ring Nebula, with a white dwarf star in the center. New research examines the fate of planets in dwarf star systems. (NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI)
There was an old elephant who swallowed an ant…
Quirks and Quarks7:54 There was an old elephant who swallowed an ant…
The complex interdependencies of plants and animals in ecosystems are often hard to understand until something bad happens. This is demonstrated in a new study from Kenya, which showed that invasive ants caused elephants to cut down trees and affected the way lions hunt zebras, to the detriment of buffalo. Adam Ford of the University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus was part of the research team, which was published in Science.
Female lion in Kenya. (Courtesy of Adam Ford)
The tiny genetic coincidence that caused humans and other apes to lose their tails
Weird Things and Quarks 8:44 The Tiny Genetic Chance that Caused Humans and Other Apes to Lose Their Tails
At some point in human evolutionary history, a piece of genetic material accidentally slipped into a gene long known to be important for the development of a full back in humans. As a result of this mutation, our ape ancestors lost their tails, according to a study in Nature magazine. And we've remained tailless to this day. Itai Yanai, a cancer biologist at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, identified the mutation and found that when he recreated it in mice, the mice also lost their tails.
A baboon at the Berlin Zoo was holding onto its tail. Scientists have discovered a simple genetic mutation that caused humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons to lose their tails about 25 million years ago. (Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images)
Better Living Through Pharmacology — Can Drugs Recreate a Healthy Lifestyle?
Quirks and Quarks19:46Better Living Through Pharmacology—Can Drugs Recreate a Healthy Lifestyle?
The secret to good health used to be simply to eat less and exercise. But a new class of medicine that provides the same effects as hitting the gym may be hitting store shelves alongside a popular new weight loss drug. We explore how these new medicines work, and how well they might replace a healthy lifestyle.
GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic, originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes and now widely used as a weight-loss drug, may be effective in more than just treating obesity and cardiovascular disease. Early evidence suggests they may also be effective in treating kidney disease, addiction-related diseases, metabolic liver disease, peripheral vascular disease, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease, said Daniel Drucker, PhD, a senior research scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Institute and the University of Toronto.
Scientists are also searching for exercise drug equivalents to combat modern sedentary lifestyles: Professor Ronald Evans of the Salk Institute is working on drugs that control genetic “master switches,” which activate the same gene networks and have the same effects as brisk walking or jogging.
Ozempic is part of a broader group of drugs being developed to treat type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease, but researchers are investigating whether the drug could have broader effects on other diseases. (Lee Smith/Reuters)
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