Bats are famous for using echolocation—a process where emitted sound waves bounce off objects, providing information about their size, distance, and the surrounding environment. Bats have a unique inner ear structure that helps them hear these echoes. In a new study, researchers have discovered that this structure varies greatly among bats, providing new insights into the evolution of echolocation.

The era of COVID-19 and the need to constantly wash one's hands and sanitize things have brought microbes to new levels of scrutiny, particularly for their impact on an individual's health.

While associations between microbes and their hosts, from the beneficial - think probiotics in yogurt - to the harmful - such as with viruses spread by touch - have long been known, little is known about how microbes evolve and how their evolution affects the health of their hosts.

In biology, phylogenetic trees represent the evolutionary history and diversification of species – the “family tree” of Life. Phylogenetic trees not only describe the evolution of a group of organisms but can also be constructed from the organisms within a particular environment or ecosystem, such as the human microbiome. In this way, they can describe how this ecosystem evolved and what its functional capabilities might be.

An investigation of two closely related proteins from a pathogenic bacterium has illustrated for the first time how evolution can shape the use of essential metals by enzymes.

A new study reveals that all insects use specialized odorant receptors that enable them to detect and pursue mates, identify enemies, find food and – unfortunately for humans – spread disease. This puts to rest a recent hypothesis that only some insects evolved the ability to detect airborne odors as an adaptation to flight, the researchers said.

The findings are reported in the journal eLife.

Quanta magazine recently interviewed Swanlund Professor of Physics and leader of IGB's Biocomplexity research theme, Nigel Goldenfeld.