Phylogenetics

Multi-drug resistant Mycobacterium abscessus clones from individuals who smoke have infiltrated the narrow niche of patients with cystic fibrosis, which has resulted in surprising specialization and subsequent worldwide dissemination.

The genome of a magnoliid, Aristolochia fimbriata, shows no evidence of whole-genome duplication, a feature uniquely shared with Amborella trichopoda, the sister species to all other angiosperms. This ancestral structure of the Aristolochia genome offers great opportunities for comparative genomics.

Sperm length unexpectedly varies more than 3,000-fold across species, posing new questions for anisogamy theory and understanding the different forces shaping evolution of the male gamete.

A recent study reports the discovery of bat coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, including a virus that displays high sequence identity to SARS-CoV-2 in most genomic regions.

Two new studies in Science use lineage tracking in humans to show that among the first few embryonic cells originating from post-fertilization cell divisions, there can be substantial imbalance in their contributions to mature tissues.

It has long been asserted that samples of taxa that span more of the Tree of Life contain more features that humans find useful. This has now been tested at a global scale: across 13,500 plant genera and nearly 9,500 uses, the prediction holds, supporting a macroevolutionary perspective on biodiversity conservation.