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One of the most exciting discoveries in genome research was that the last common ancestor of all multicellular animals - which lived about 600 million years ago - already possessed an extremely complex genome. Many of the ancestral genes can still be found in modern day species (e.g., human). However, it has long been unclear whether the arrangement of these genes in the genome also had a certain function.

Mitosis is the process by which the genetic information encoded on chromosomes is equally distributed to two daughter cells, a fundamental feature of all life on earth. Scientists led by Alexander Dammermann at the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, now examine how centrioles contribute to this process.

Metallophilic microorganisms could benefit from the heavy metal in harsh survival conditions A boiling point of 5900 degrees Celsius and diamond-like hardness in combination with carbon: tungsten is the heaviest metal, yet has biological functions - especially in heat-loving microorganisms. A team led by Tetyana Milojevic from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna report for the first time rare microbial-tungsten interactions at the nanometer range.

Antidepressant treatment, not only depression per se, can lead to reductions in behavioral and neural responses to pain empathy Depression is a disorder that often comes along with strong impairments of social functioning. Until recently, researchers assumed that acute episodes of depression also impair empathy, an essential skill for successful social interactions and understanding others.

By Werner Schandor Jürgen Hartler hardly has time for swimming, his favourite pastime, because he's busy conducting research into mass spectrometry of lipids at UC San Diego - where the sea is on his doorstop. "I haven't had much time to go to the beach," explains the bioinformatics expert, who began his year-long stay at UC San Diego's Department of Pharmacology in October 2018.

Raven observers show emotional contagion with raven demonstrators experiencing an unpleasant affect To effectively navigate the social world, we need information about each other's emotions. Emotional contagion has been suggested to facilitate such information transmission, constituting a basic building block of empathy that could also be present in non-human animals.

Researchers discover new factor influencing the spread of Legionella When people fall ill from bacterial infection, the first priority is to treat the disease. But where do these pathogens come from and how do they thrive in the environment before the infection occurs' An international team led by Matthias Horn from the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science at the University of Vienna has tackled this question using an important bacterial pathogen that causes lung disease.

Birds-of-paradise are a group of songbird species, and are known for their magnificent male plumage and bewildering sexual display. Now, an international collaborative work involving Dept. of Molecular Evolution and Development of University of Vienna, Zhejiang University of China, and Swedish Museum of Natural History analyzed all together 11 songbird species genomes, including those of five bird-of-paradise species, and reconstructed the evolutionary history of their sex chromosomes.

By Christoph Pelzl In Nature Communications, researchers from Graz, Austria present new perspectives to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistances in hospitals. Additional at the end of the text. The number of people who die from antibiotic-resistant germs is increasing worldwide. The World Health Organization WHO considers the spread of antibiotic resistance and appropriate countermeasures as one of the most important global challenges nowadays.

Orangutans make complex economic decisions about tool use depending on the current 'market' situation Flexible tool use is closely associated to higher mental processes such as the ability to plan actions. Now a group of cognitive biologists and comparative psychologists from the University of Vienna, the University of St Andrews and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna that included Isabelle Laumer and Josep Call, has studied tool related decision-making in a non-human primate species - the orangutan.

When bodies of water become polluted, it is important to find the cause as quickly and as economically as possible. To this end, TU Wien has now developed a new, DNA-based rapid testing procedure. Water contamination is one of the world's major health risks. In order to swiftly resolve the problem in the event of faecal contamination, it is vital that the cause is identified as quickly as possible: is it contamination from agriculture?

Researchers develop approach to protect biodiversity New Zealand and other islands have experienced invasions of rats, Europe has seen the arrival of the spinycheek crayfish, spreading a deadly disease called crayfish plague: invasive species can put native animal and plant species on the brink of extinction.

In speech and music, words and notes depend on each other. Humans are highly sensitive to such dependencies, but the evolutionary origins of this capacity are poorly understood. Cognitive biologists at the University of Vienna conducted playback experiments with common marmoset monkeys and found that sensitivity to dependencies might have been present in the shared ancestor of marmosets and humans.

The human brain has computing elements similar to the biggest supercomputers, but needs only a fraction of their energy. And it is constantly learning. Brain-inspired computing is for this reason an important topic of the future. 'Colleagues in neuroscience think that we basically know less today about how the human brain works than we did ten years ago,' says Wolfgang Maass.

Advances in cellular microscopy: at TU Wien (Vienna), flies were made transparent, so that individual nerve cells, marked with fluorescent molecules, can be examined directly in the animal. The nervous system of an animal can be studied by cutting it up into thin layers - however this inevitably leads to the destruction of the cellular structures in the tissue.

Biochips have been developed at TU Wien (Vienna), on which tissue can be produced and examined. This allows supplying the tissue with different substances in a very controlled way. Cultivating human cells in the Petri dish is not a big challenge today. Producing artificial tissue, however, permeated by fine blood vessels, is a much more difficult task.

Orangutans spontaneously bend straight wires into hooks to fish for food The bending of a hook into wire to fish for the handle of a basket is surprisingly challenging for young children under eight years of age. Now cognitive biologists and comparative psychologists from the University of Vienna, the University of St Andrews and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna around Isabelle Laumer and Alice Auersperg studied hook tool making for the first time in a non-human primate species - the orangutan.

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is, along with DNA and protein, one of the three primary biological macromolecules and was probably the first to arise in early life forms. In the "RNA world" hypothesis, RNA is able to support life on its own because it can both store information and catalyze biochemical reactions.

In an industrial collaboration project, TU Wien has developed a medication that can alleviate or even completely eliminate the symptoms of celiac disease. It should be available as early as 2021. Celiac disease is a fairly common disease, affecting one to two percent of the European population. It is expressed as a hypersensitivity to gluten, a protein found in cereals such as wheat, barley or rye.

By Birgit Baustädter The MoreGrasp project is coming to an end and has provided substantial results. The mental control of neuroprostheses can be considerably simplified in the future with the help of reprocessed brain signals. Marcel is paralysed and can only partially move his arms and legs. He cannot grasp glasses and needs support to eat.