New research from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of Turku reveals that female mountain gorillas, like humans and a handful of other mammals, can live long past the birth of their last offspring.

The Human Cell Aging Transcriptome Atlas contains single cell RNA-sequencing data from 3,475 human samples and interactive tools to explore age-related alterations in gene expression and go term enrichment in a diverse set of tissues and cell types.

A meta-analysis of 25 transcriptomic datasets from mammalian tissues revealed 45 genes consistently upregulated or downregulated with age. Orthologs of these genes were functionally evaluated using C...

In many animal groups genital structures appear to have evolved extremely rapidly, prompting enduring interest in why this is so. Throughout this literature there remains a bias towards studying male ...

Infertility affects about one in six couples, and male factors account for roughly half of all cases—often because sperm don't swim well.

Surprising epigenetic effect relies on snippets of RNA packaged within sperm

Over a few million years, the spider Dysdera tilosensis—a species endemic to the Canary Islands—has reduced the size of its genome by half during the process of colonization and adaptation to its natural habitat.

Abstract. Sexual conflict frequently gives rise to adaptations that increase male reproductive success at the expense of harming females (“male harm”) and

We applied a novel multivariate analysis to measure linear and nonlinear selection on components of a complex reaction norm that was expected to be shaped

Ecology and Evolution, Volume 15, Issue 10, October 2025.

Nature Communications, Published online: 11 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s41467-025-64473-0Whether paternal pre-conceptual SARS-CoV-2 infection impacts sperm RNA content, or effects offspring phenotypes, has not been previously investigated. Here authors report changes in sperm noncoding RNAs in SARS-CoV-2 infected sires and increased anxiety-like behaviors in offspring.

Abstract Parental care has evolved multiple times in the animal kingdom and includes all parental traits that enhance offspring fitness. The evolution of care can lead to prolonged associations between parents and their offspring. This, in turn, can drive parent–offspring coevolution, creating systems in which multiple care behaviors are exhibited and potentially resulting in offspring becoming more dependent on parental care. Parental care often takes indirect forms, such as nest building, while direct care behaviors, like feeding, which involve physical interaction with offspring, are generally less frequent. However, in species where both types of care occur, the extent to which offspring rely on indirect versus direct care is often unknown. In this study, we investigated the roles and relative importance of direct and indirect care in a system where offspring are highly dependent on parental care. We conducted an experiment in which we manipulated the duration and composition of direct and indirect post-hatching care in the burying beetle Nicrophorus orbicollis. Burying beetles reproduce by exploiting small vertebrate carcasses, which they bury and convert into a nutritious nursery for their offspring. In addition to modifying the food resource, parents actively feed their offspring. We found that direct care had a greater effect on offspring growth and survival than indirect care, although indirect care also enhanced fitness. The greater reliance on feeding over indirect care is likely the result of sibling competition for food. Our study underscores the complexity and multi-layered nature of parental care strategies and their effects on offspring performance. Significance Statement Parental care enhances offspring fitness and can include both indirect care, like nest building, and direct care, like feeding. In systems where both care types occur, it is often unclear how much offspring rely on each type. As a model, we used Nicrophorus orbicollis burying beetles, which prepare a carcass as a nursery and regurgitate food to their offspring, to experimentally manipulate the duration and composition of direct and indirect care and assess their relative contributions to offspring survival and growth in this species. Our results show that while direct care has a stronger effect on offspring survival and growth, indirect care also provides measurable benefits. This study highlights the adaptive value of multi-component parental care strategies and the complex interactions between parents and offspring in species that depend heavily on parental care.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 122, Issue 40, October 2025. SignificanceAs climate change alters environments, many wild populations are struggling to keep up. However, empirical examples of what happens when genotype and phenotype fail to track environmental change remain rare. Here, we identify genetic and ...

When testing differences between populations, ecologists often face a tradeoff between collecting repeated measures from the same unit or independent replications across units. In studies of social insects, for instance, one can sample many individuals within a colony or fewer individuals from more colonies. This choice affects not only statistical power but also the accuracy of variance estimates, which may in turn inflate type-I error. The cost of sampling an additional independent replicate often differs from that of a repeated measure, requiring an efficient experimental design. We use a simulated case study based on social insect research to explore how sampling strategies impact type-I and type-II errors in linear mixed-effects models. In crossed designs—where each colony experiences all levels of a fixed effect—sampling strategy had minimal impact. In contrast, nested designs—where different colonies experience different treatments—were highly sensitive to sampling allocation, with poor variance estimates leading to elevated type-I error rates. Increasing independent replications generally improved accuracy but is more costly, as confirmed by our literature survey showing social insect studies sampled nearly three times more repeated measures than independent replicates. To address this, we developed two optimization protocols that incorporate both sampling cost and balanced accuracy. By integrating power analysis with realistic effort constraints, we provide a practical roadmap for designing efficient, multiscale experiments. While our study was focused on social insects, our results can generalize to other systems requiring a balance between repeated measures and independent replications.

Background Aging is a complex biological process characterized by progressive molecular alterations across multiple organ systems, significantly influencing disease susceptibility and mortality. Unraveling molecular interactions driving aging is crucial for interventions promoting healthy aging and mitigating senescence. However, the systemic mechanisms governing both inter-organ interactions and organ-specific aging trajectories remain incompletely characterized. Methods To investigate the molecular dynamics of aging, we conducted a systematic multi-omics analysis of 400 tissue samples collected from 10 organs (brain, heart, intestine, kidney, liver, lung, muscle, skin, spleen, and stomach) in mice at four distinct life stages: 4, 8, 12, and 20 months (from youth to elderly). Proteomic profiling was performed using data-independent acquisition (DIA) technology, while metabolomic analysis was performed in both positive and negative ion modes. Differential expression analysis of proteins and metabolites was employed to construct a comprehensive multi-organ aging dataset. Results Proteomic profiling across ten organs at four age stages identified a total of 14,763 protein groups (PGs). Of these, 18 proteins, including Ighm, C4b, and Hpx, exhibited consistent age-related differential expression patterns across all ten organs. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted the humoral immune response as a primary driver of age-related expression changes. Additionally, this study mapped a set of age-unique proteins, such as Hp, Egf, and Arg, with distinct expression patterns in aging organs. Metabolic analysis identified 3779 metabolites, with key aging-related metabolites such as NAD+, inosine, xanthine, and hypoxanthine showing significant expression changes across multiple organs. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed consistent alterations in purine metabolism, pyrimidine metabolism, riboflavin metabolism, and nicotinate/nicotinamide metabolism during multi-organ aging. Conclusions This study provides a multi-omics atlas of multi-organ aging, revealing both intra- and inter-organ similarities and heterogeneities. These findings offer valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying geriatric health decline and serve as a foundational resource for organism-systematic early warning and targeted interventions against aging-associated pathologies.

During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...

Researchers led by Hokto Kazama at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan have discovered how animals sense whether things smell pleasant or unpleasant, one of the abilities that allow us to appreciate the flavor of foods.

Efficient DNA repair might make possible the longevity of naked mole-rats. However, whether they have distinctive mechanisms to optimize functions of DNA repair suppressors is unclear. We find that naked mole-rat cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine ...

A woman's fertility declines with age, which is often attributed to a fall in egg number and quality, but the environment of the ovaries themselves may also be responsible

Nature, Published online: 08 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09521-xSex bias and association with smoking history identified in the landscape of driver mutations and clonal expansions in normal human bladder tissue may explain the higher bladder cancer risk in men and smokers.