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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys1432 | DOI Listing |
Int J Mol Sci
December 2024
Department of Pharmacology, JSS College of Pharmacy, JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research, Mysuru 570015, Karnataka, India.
Sleep is a universally conserved behavior whose origin and evolutionary purpose are uncertain. Using phylogenomics, this article investigates the evolutionary foundations of sleep from a never before used perspective. More specifically, it identifies orthologs of human sleep-related genes in the Lokiarchaeota of the Asgard superphylum and examines their functional role.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
January 2025
Origin of Language Laboratories, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America.
Speculations on the evolution of language have invoked comparisons across human and non-human primate communication. While there is widespread support for the claim that gesture plays a central, perhaps a predominant role in early language development and that gesture played the foundational role in language evolution, much empirical information does not accord with the gestural claims. The present study follows up on our prior work that challenged the gestural theory of language development with longitudinal data showing early speech-like vocalizations occurred more than 5 times as often as gestures in the first year of life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Endocrinol
January 2025
W L Miller, Department of Pediatrics, Center for Reproductive Sciences, and Institute for Human Genetics University of California, San Francisco, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Current understanding of the biology, biochemistry and genetics of the steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) and its deficiency state (congenital lipoid adrenal hyperplasia, lipoid CAH) involves the complex interplay of four areas of study: the acute regulation of steroidogenesis, clinical phenomena in lipoid CAH, the enzymatic conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone in steroidogenic mitochondria, and the cell biology of StAR. This review traces the origins of these areas of study, describes how they have been woven into an increasingly coherent fabric, and tries to explore some remaining loose ends in this ongoing field of endocrine research. Abundant research from multiple laboratories establishes that StAR is required for the rapid, abundant steroidal responses of the adrenals and gonads, but all steroidogenic cells, especially the placenta, have StAR-independent steroidogenesis, whose basis remains under investigation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Biol Sci
January 2025
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Life has existed on Earth for most of the planet's history, yet major gaps and unresolved questions remain about how it first arose and persisted. Early Earth posed numerous challenges for life, including harsh and fluctuating environments. Today, many organisms cope with such conditions by entering a reversible state of reduced metabolic activity, a phenomenon known as dormancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLife (Basel)
December 2024
Department of Earth, Energy, and Environment, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada.
Alkaline lakes are thought to have facilitated prebiotic synthesis reactions on the early Earth because their modern analogs accumulate vital chemical feedstocks such as phosphate through the evaporation of dilute groundwaters. Yet, the conditions required for some building block synthesis reactions are distinct from others, and these conditions are generally incompatible with those permissible for nascent cellular function. However, because current scenarios for prebiotic synthesis have not taken account of the physical processes that drive the chemical evolution of alkaline lakes, the potential for the co-occurrence of both prebiotic synthesis and the origins and early evolution of life in prebiotic alkaline lake environments remains poorly constrained.
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