Fates intertwined. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. January 9, 2019. To most people, life-forms like this orange lichen are little more than curious decorations on rocks and trees, often overlooked. But to one Duke biologist, they represent one of the world’s oldest quid pro quos: a symbiosis between two kingdoms whose evolutionary fates are tightly intertwined.

How fruits got their eye-catching colors. Duke Today, Sept. 24, 2018. New evidence supports the idea that plants owe their rainbow of fruit colors to the different animals that eat them. Researchers first had to get past the fact that most animals don’t see colors quite the way humans do. Picked up by The Daily Mail, The New York Times, CBC News, NPR, Science Magazine, Science News and Discover Magazine.

Fossils rewrite story of lemur origins. Duke Today, August 21, 2018. Research reveals that a 20-million-year-old African fossil, long thought to be a bat, actually represents one of the earliest branches of the lemur family tree. The reassessment challenges a long-held view that lemurs descended from ancestors that colonized Madagascar in a single wave roughly 60 million years ago, and were the first mammals to get there. Instead, the researchers say two separate lemur lineages may have arrived independently, and much later than previously thought. Picked up by ZME Science, Cosmos Magazine, BBC News, Science News and Gizmodo.

Mapping mountaintop coal mining’s yearly spread in Appalachia. Duke Today, July 25, 2018. A new mapping tool shows, in more detail than ever before, the land laid bare by mountaintop coal mining in central Appalachia each year, going back more than three decades. The tool uses satellite imagery to identify and map the annual extent of mining activity across portions of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The researchers say the updated maps will make it easier to assess and mitigate mining’s environmental and health impacts. Picked up by Smithsonian Magazine, Gizmodo, UPI, West Virginia Public Broadcasting and NPR affiliate WOUB.

Larger-than-life pollen. 1,100 Words on Duke Research, Aug. 31, 2017. Lodged on the head of a daisy, these spiky pollen grains were photographed at 2,200 times magnification using a portable scanning electron microscope that can be brought into classrooms.

Microbes give meerkat gangs their signature scents. Duke Today, June 12, 2017. Body odor. To some it’s an embarrassing nuisance. But to meerkats, it’s a calling card. Meerkats produce a pungent “paste” that they use to mark their turf. With one whiff they can tell if a scent belongs to a relative, a rival or a potential mate. But the chemical signals in this stinky graffiti don’t come from the meerkats themselves; they’re made by odor-producing bacteria that thrive in the meerkats’ gooey secretions, researchers find. Picked up by Popular Science, the Daily Mail, Discover Magazine and Science News.

Combating counterfeiters. 1,100 words on Duke Research, May 17, 2017. These bird egg varieties are no accident — they’re an anti-counterfeit strategy.

Data geeks go head to head. Duke Research Blog, April 6, 2017. For North Carolina college students, “big data” is becoming a big deal. The proof: signups for DataFest, a 48-hour number-crunching competition held at Duke last weekend, set a record for the third time in a row this year.

Chance helps explain why some HPV infections go away & others become cancer. Duke Today, March 24, 2015. A Duke study finds that the body’s ability to clear an infection by the cancer-causing human papilloma virus (HPV) may be largely due to unpredictable division patterns in HPV-infected stem cells, rather than the strength of the person’s immune response as previously thought. Picked up by the Herald-Sun.

Emily Derbyshire: prospecting for new malaria drugs. Duke Today, October 1, 2014. New faculty member works at the intersection of chemistry and biology to address malaria and other global health problems.

Lillian Pierce: a head for pure mathematics. Duke Today, September 26, 2014. For Duke mathematician Lillian Pierce, trying to solve a problem in her field is like piecing together an exquisite machine, one carefully placed gear, cog or spring at a time.

Water ‘thermostat’ could help engineer drought-resistant crops. Duke Today, August 27, 2014. Researchers have identified a gene that could help engineer drought-resistant crops. The gene, called OSCA1, encodes a protein in the cell membrane of plants that senses changes in water availability and adjusts the plant’s water conservation machinery accordingly. The findings, which appear in the journal Nature, could make it easier to feed the world’s growing population in the face of climate change. Picked up by MIT Technology Review.

Scientist identifies world’s biggest-ever flying bird. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, July 7, 2014. Scientists have identified the fossilized remains of an extinct giant bird that could be the biggest flying bird ever found. With an estimated 20-24-foot wingspan, the creature surpassed the previous record holder — an extinct bird named Argentavis magnificens — and was twice as big as the Royal Albatross, the largest flying bird today. Computer simulations show that the creature’s long slender wings helped it stay aloft despite its enormous size. Picked up by Fox News, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Science Magazine, Discovery News, CBC, U.S. News & World Report, the Independent, the Guardian, NBC news, Science News, Discover Magazine, the Huffington Post, Slate Magazine, the Daily Mail, Scientific American, the Boston Herald, National Geographic, New Scientist, the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek.

Fruit-loving lemurs score higher on spatial memory tests. Duke Today, February 21, 2014. Food-finding tests in five lemur species show that fruit-eaters may have better spatial memory than lemurs with a more varied diet. The results support the idea that relying on foods that are seasonally available and far-flung gives a competitive edge to individuals with certain cognitive abilities — such as remembering where the goodies are.

Study offers clues to how plants evolved to cope with cold. December 22, 2013. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. Researchers have found new clues to how plants evolved to withstand wintry weather. In a study in the journal Nature, the team constructed an evolutionary tree of more than 32,000 species of flowering plants — the largest time-scaled evolutionary tree to date. By combining their tree with freezing exposure records and leaf and stem data for thousands of species, the researchers were able to reconstruct how plants evolved to cope with cold as they spread across the globe. The results suggest that many plants acquired characteristics that helped them thrive in colder climates — such as dying back to the roots in winter — long before they first encountered freezing. Picked up by Futurity.

Biodiversity higher in the tropics, but species more likely to arise at higher latitudes. November 22, 2013. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. A study of 2300 species of mammals and 6700 species of birds offers a counterintuitive explanation for why there are more species in the tropics than at higher latitudes. Researchers found that while the tropics harbor more species, the number of subspecies increases in the harsher environments typical of higher latitudes. The results suggest that the latitudinal diversity gradient may be due higher species turnover — speciation counterbalanced by extinction — towards the poles than near the equator.