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evolution

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22 May 2024 A sphere with two separated halves; the left half is blue and depicts chromosomes separating along spindles inside multiple nuclei, while the right half is orange, depicting a single set of chromosomes and a spindle with no nuclear envelope visible.

Exploring diversity in cell division

Science & Technology New research by EMBL scientists shows how different modes of cell division used by animals and fungi might have evolved to support diverse life cycles.

2024

science-technology

1 March 2024 Photographs of two male scientists in round insets against a decorative background

2024 EMBL Alumni Award recipients announced

EMBL Announcements Two former EMBL scientists have been recognised for their outstanding contributions to research and leadership capabilities in the fields of evolutionary cell biology and molecular medicine.

2024

alumniembl-announcements

25 January 2024 An oval light blue shape. In the central part, there is a smaller a red object, from which stem many highly branched smaller canals that cover a significant part of the blue surface. The whole sponge image is in placed in a circle. The background around the circle is blue-green.

Ancient ‘relaxant-inflammatory’ response gets sponges moving

Science & Technology Sponges lack muscles and neurons. Yet, they make coordinated movements. Scientists at EMBL Heidelberg have discovered that sponge movement is controlled by an ancient ‘relaxant-inflammatory’ response that is also present in vertebrate blood vessels. The findings shed light on sponge physiology…

2024

sciencescience-technology

8 June 2022 Two female scientists shown against a green background

2022 EMBL Alumni Awards Winners announced

EMBL Announcements Two former EMBL staff members have been recognised for their outstanding contributions to research in the fields of brain evolution and cancer.

2022

alumniembl-announcements

5 November 2021 Three-dimensional rendering of sponge neuroid cells (coloured orange) and sponge digestive cells (coloured green).

More than a gut reaction

Science & Technology What can sponges tell us about the evolution of the brain? Sponges have the genes involved in neuronal function in higher animals. But if sponges don’t have brains, what is the role of these? EMBL scientists imaged the sponge digestive chamber to find out.

2021

sciencescience-technology

19 February 2021 New group leader Gautam Dey looks smiling towards the camera,

Welcome to EMBL: Gautam Dey

Lab MattersPeople & Perspectives Gautam Dey is fascinated by the evolutionary origins of the nucleus, and is looking forward to making the most of EMBL's infrastructure.

2021

lab-matterspeople-perspectives

14 October 2020

Seeing evolution happening before your eyes

Science & Technology Researchers from EMBL Heidelberg have established an automated pipeline to create mutations in genomic enhancers, letting them watch evolution unfold before their eyes.

2020

sciencescience-technology

29 November 2019 Choanocyte chamber of sponge, with neuroid cell

Neural pathways

Science & Technology Exploring the diverse routes by which EMBL scientists are driving forward neurobiology

2019

sciencescience-technology

31 October 2018 Internal anatomy of the marine worm’s head.

A worm’s sense of the world

Science & Technology EMBL researchers discover that four organs in a marine worm’s head can sense different chemicals

2018

sciencescience-technology

9 May 2018 Benito-Gutiérrez searching for cephalochordates on board the dhoni boat

Ocean origins

Lab MattersPeople & Perspectives EMBL alumna, Èlia Benito-Gutiérrez, on how her research and career evolved after searching the seas

2018

lab-matterspeople-perspectives

12 February 2018 Charles Darwin portrait gravure - Darwin’s studies of orchids firmly established the idea that many types of flowers are pollinated by insects. PHOTO: iStock

On the orchids of Darwin

Science & Technology How Darwin’s work revealed the intimate relationship between orchids and insects

2018

sciencescience-technology

11 August 2017

Welcome: Justin Crocker

People & Perspectives Meet Justin Crocker, EMBL’s new group leader in gene regulation during evolution and development

2017

people-perspectivesscience

9 June 2017

Mapping gene expression, cell by cell

Science & Technology EMBL researchers complete a molecular atlas showing gene expression in all cells in an entire animal

2017

sciencescience-technology

13 March 2017

Futures: Brain evolution

Science & Technology ERC grantee Detlev Arendt shares his vision for the next ten years

2017

sciencescience-technology

11 December 2015 Periodic Table of Protein Complexes, Ahnert et al., Science 2015

Periodic table of protein complexes

Science & Technology Making it easier to visualise, understand and predict how proteins combine to drive biological processes.

2015

sciencescience-technology

9 December 2015 Standing room only at the second EMBL Movie Night. PHOTO: EMBL/Marietta Schupp

Dinosaurs, DNA and Dolly

Lab Matters Two PhD students sink their teeth into the science and speculations of Jurassic Park.

2015

eventslab-matters

25 November 2015 IMAGE: EMBL-EBI/Spencer Phillips

What makes us human? Or not…

Science & Technology From jumping genes to organ transplants, the non-human features that make us human.

2015

sciencescience-technology

25 November 2015 Agustín Fuentes. PHOTO: Lawrence Smith/Fairfax media

Branches: What makes humans tick?

People & PerspectivesScience & Technology What really sets humans apart? Forming societies, teaching and compassion, says Agustin Fuentes.

2015

people-perspectivesscience-technology

25 November 2015 EMBL Heidelberg hosted a day's discussion on what makes us human. PHOTO: Jörg Langowski

Being human beings

People & Perspectives Highlights from the 'What makes us human?' symposium at EMBL Heidelberg.

2015

eventspeople-perspectives

1 October 2015 What do diatoms really do? Chris Bowler would like to know. IMAGE: Sebastien Colin

Marine mysteries

Science & Technology From the role of diatoms to how life evolved - scientists' pressing questions about life in the sea.

2015

sciencescience-technology

24 August 2015 Healthy Tasmanian devil in its natural habitat.

Branches: Sympathy for the devil

Lab Matters A contagious cancer threatens the Tasmanian devil – extract from Science in School journal.

2015

eventslab-matters

23 January 2015 Silvia Rohr. PHOTO: EMBL PHOTOLAB/MARIETTA SCHUPP

Let there be light

Lab Matters PhD student Silvia Rohr on studying eyes – and talking about it for a general audience.

2015

lab-matters

17 October 2014 Five-armed starfish

Superstars of science

From anemones to starfish, sea creatures are helping understand development, evolution and more.

2014

science

25 September 2014 Marine ragworm brain

How plankton gets jet lagged

How plankton gets jet lagged: the same hormone governs our sleep patterns and a daily marine migration.

2014

science

1 July 2014

The future’s bright

Surprising protein from a flu-like virus is 10 000th ESRF structure

2014

science

31 October 2012

Spot the difference

Science & Technology In a nutshell: 1st map combining human genetic variation at different scales – from single letters to large chunks Based on genomes of 1092 healthy people from Europe, the Americas and East Asia Could help identify genetic causes of disease, rather than just links Data made freely available in…

2012

sciencescience-technology

12 January 2012

Evolution by ‘copy-paste’

Science & Technology A team of geneticists and computational biologists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Cancer Research UK reveal how an ancient mechanism is involved in gene control and continues to drive genome…

2012

sciencescience-technology

2 September 2010 A virtual Platynereis brain (left), created by averaging microscopy images of the brains of 36 different individuals, onto which scientists mapped gene activity (right). Perspective shows the brain as viewed from inside a Platynereis larvae, at 48 hours' old. Image credits: EMBL/R. Tomer

Brainy worms: Evolution of the cerebral cortex

Our cerebral cortex, or pallium, is a big part of what makes us human: art, literature and science would not exist had this most fascinating part of our brain not emerged in some less intelligent ancestor in prehistoric times. But when did this occur and what were these ancestors? Unexpectedly,…

2010

science

31 January 2010

MicroRNA: a glimpse into the past

The last ancestor we shared with worms, which roamed the seas around 600 million years ago, may already have had a sophisticated brain that released hormones into the blood and was connected to various sensory organs. The evidence comes not from a newly found fossil but from the study of microRNAs…

2010

science

19 January 2010 Image credit: Rachel Melwig & Christine Panagiotidis / EMBL

Membrane-coat proteins: bacteria have them too

Although they are present almost everywhere, on land and sea, a group of related bacteria in the superphylum Planctomycetes-Verrucomicrobia-Chlamydiae, or PVC, have remained in relative obscurity ever since they were first described about a decade ago. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology…

2010

science

20 November 2008

Uncovering secrets of life in the ocean

The best-selling novel The swarm captured the imagination of countless readers with the fascination of marine life. But it also showed how little we understand life in the depth of the ocean. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the Max Planck Institute (MPI)…

2008

science

9 July 2008

Zooming in on genetic shuffling

Genetic recombination, the process by which sexually reproducing organisms shuffle their genetic material when producing germ cells, leads to offspring with a new genetic make-up and influences the course of evolution. In the current issue of Nature, researchers at the European Molecular…

2008

science

20 June 2008

Scientists fix bugs in our understanding of evolution

What makes a human different from a chimp? Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have come one important step closer to answering such evolutionary questions correctly. In the current issue of Science they uncover…

2008

science

30 May 2008

X chromosome exposed

Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Hinxton, UK, have revealed new insights into how sex chromosomes are regulated. A chromatin modifying enzyme helps compensate for the fact that…

2008

science

7 May 2008

Platypus genome sequence published

UK-based researchers at the Medical Research Council Functional Genomics Unit in Oxford and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge have revealed the genetic makeup of the one of the world’s strangest mammals. They have analysed the DNA…

2008

science

29 June 2007

Modern brains have an ancient core

Hormones control growth, metabolism, reproduction and many other important biological processes. In humans, and all other vertebrates, the chemical signals are produced by specialised brain centres such as the hypothalamus and secreted into the blood stream that distributes them around the body.…

2007

science

20 April 2007

The origin of the brain lies in a worm

The rise of the central nervous system (CNS) in animal evolution has puzzled scientists for centuries. Vertebrates, insects and worms evolved from the same ancestor, but their CNSs are different and were thought to have evolved only after their lineages had split during evolution. Researchers from…

2007

science

2 February 2007

Investigating the invisible life in our environment

Microorganisms make up more than a third of the Earth’s biomass. They are found in water, on land and even in our bodies, recycling nutrients, influencing the planet’s climate or causing diseases. Still, we know surprisingly little about the smallest beings that colonise Earth. A new…

2007

science

27 September 2006

How nature tinkers with the cellular clock

The life of a cell is all about growing and dividing at the right time. That is why the cell cycle is one of the most tightly regulated cellular processes. A control system with several layers adjusts when key components of the cell cycle machinery are produced, activated and degraded to make sure…

2006

science

16 March 2006

A balancing act between the sexes

Recent research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) reveals new insights into how cells achieve equality between the sexes. A new link discovered between the membrane surrounding the nucleus and the male X-chromosome in fruit flies may play a crucial role in determining how active…

2006

science

2 March 2006

A new tree of life allows a closer look at the origin of species

In 1870 the German scientist Ernst Haeckel mapped the evolutionary relationships of plants and animals in the first ‘tree of life’. Since then scientists have continuously redrawn and expanded the tree adding microorganisms and using modern molecular data, yet, many parts of the tree…

2006

science

24 November 2005

The earliest animals had human-like genes

Species evolve at very different rates, and the evolutionary line that produced humans seems to be among the slowest. The result, according to a new study by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], is that our species has retained characteristics of a very ancient ancestor…

2005

science

25 August 2005

A double punch for female survival

Achieving equality between the sexes can be a challenge even for single cells. Since evolution began removing bits of male DNA to create the ‘Y’ chromosome, males have had a single copy of certain key genes on the X chromosome, whereas females have two. Normally this would lead females…

2005

science

1 July 2005

Trees, vines and nets: microbial evolution changes its face

EBI researchers have changed our view of 4 billion years of microbial evolution. Christos Ouzounis and colleagues have gained intriguing quantitative insights into how gene families are transferred, not only ‘vertically’ through passage from one organism to its progeny, but also…

2005

science

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