All articles tagged with #animal origins
A Nature feature traces a two-decade dispute over whether sponges or comb jellies are the earliest animal lineage, sparked by a 2008 genome study; with fossil evidence sparse, researchers call for a collaborative approach to uncover the fleeting genetic signals that could pinpoint the root of the animal family tree.
The article explores how multicellularity evolved in life on Earth, highlighting research on five simple organisms related to animals, such as choanoflagellates and Capsaspora, which reveal that the molecular toolkit for multicellularity existed long before animals appeared, and that multiple evolutionary paths, including clonal division and aggregation, contributed to this major transition.
Chinese scientists have published a study in the journal Nature confirming the presence of animals susceptible to the coronavirus at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan in early 2020, where many of the earliest known Covid patients had worked or shopped. The study found DNA from raccoon dogs and other animals at the market, but the scientists said it remained unclear how the pandemic began. Many virologists believe the virus spilled into people from an illegally traded wild animal at the market, but the Chinese authors stressed uncertainty and raised the notion that the virus could have been ferried to the Wuhan market on packages of frozen food.
New genetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 viruses found at the Huanan animal market in Wuhan offers clues to the animal origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, including "molecular evidence" of animals like raccoon dogs at the market intermingled in swabs from the same spots that turned up the shedding from the virus itself in the market. However, the samples only indicate that both raccoon dogs and the virus were present at the market; it is not direct proof that the species was the carrier. The WHO has called for Chinese health authorities to release genetic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 that recently disappeared from an international database.