• Cetacean genomes tell of the transition to the sea

    From Pro Plyd@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jan 20 19:40:51 2023
    Quite a number of interesting bits, like cetaceans lost the gene
    for saliva.


    https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/the-evolution-of-whales-from-land-to-sea/

    Genomes of cetaceans help tell story of mammals who returned to life
    aquatic.

    ...
    But their body plans are just the start of cetaceans’
    weirdness. To survive in the sea, they also had to make i
    nternal modifications, altering their blood, saliva,
    lungs, and skin. Many of those changes aren’t obvious
    in fossils, and cetaceans aren’t easily studied in the
    lab. Instead it was, once again, genetics that brought
    them to light.

    With an increasing availability of cetacean genomes,
    geneticists can now look for the molecular changes that
    accompanied the back-to-water transition. While it’s
    impossible to be certain about the influence of any
    particular mutation, scientists suspect that many of
    the ones they see correspond to adaptations that allow
    cetaceans to dive and thrive in the deep blue sea.
    ...

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