Tag Archives: Offspring

Reprinted with Permission from World at Large… What if there were a way that didn’t involve CRISPR to give your offspring a natural talent for athletics? Well that’s totally possible as it turns out, because scientists just demonstrated it in mice, and it didn’t even involve so-called “good genes”. It involved a modern and exciting field of genetic biology called …

A recent study by the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health has found that COVID-19 can cause changes in sperm that may impact offspring behaviour. Using a mouse model, researchers observed that male mice infected with SARS-CoV-2 before mating produced offspring who exhibited higher levels of anxiety-like behaviours. These changes were linked to alterations in non-coding RNA in sperm, …

Florey researchers have shown that a father’s SARS-CoV-2 viral infection before conception can alter their offspring’s brain development and behaviour, through changes in sperm. Lead researcher Professor Anthony Hannan said the study in mice suggested that the COVID-19 could have long-lasting effects on future generations. “We already knew that when male mice were exposed to specific environmental and lifestyle factors, …

What do you get when you cross a blue jay with a green jay? That’s not the start of a joke, but the subject of a new study that aims to describe a hybrid bird never encountered before in the wild. The bigger question scientists are puzzling over, though, is why does the mystery bird exist? “We think it’s the …

The mystery bird was observed following a flock of blue jays, making similar calls. But it also produced the clicks… The mystery bird was observed following a flock of blue jays, making similar calls. But it also produced the clicks and rattling vocalizations of a green jay.(Brian Stokes/University of Texas via CNN Newsource) The mystery bird was observed following a …

What do you get when you cross a blue jay with a green jay? That’s not the start of a joke, but the subject of a new study that aims to describe a hybrid bird never encountered before in the wild. The bigger question scientists are puzzling over, though, is why does the mystery bird exist? “We think it’s the …

For the first time, scientists have observed the wild hybrid offspring of a blue jay and a green jay during a study near San Antonio, Texas. The hybrid bird is the product of two species whose habitat ranges began to overlap a few decades ago, according to a study published Sept. 10 in the journal Ecology and Evolution. “We think …

This month, there’s one story on everybody’s minds. I’m speaking, of course, about the Iberian harvester ant queens who can clone ants of an entirely different species to breed a subaltern army of hybrid ants whose only purpose is to serve them. If you, too, have been transfixed by their story and are eager to learn more about these ants’ …

Some ant queens can produce offspring of more than one species – even when the other species is not known to exist in the nearby wild. No other animal on Earth is known to do this, and it’s hard for even scientists to believe. “It’s an absolutely fantastic, bizarre story of a system that allows things to happen that seem …

Reproduction in the animal world is all kinds of freaky, from penis jousting to mammals laying eggs, there seems to be just about every method going. However, one thing that is not common is females of one species being able to produce offspring of another, but that’s exactly what has been discovered in Iberian harvester ants (Messor ibericus). The rest …