Genomics in freshwater and marine science - Nature

Graphical summary of the project's key results. Credit: Fernández B., Bustos M., Vera T., Palacios M., Hill D. & Astudillo D. Pollution from human-generated waste in marine ecosystems has reached critical levels, with cigarette butts (CBs) among the most persistent and harmful pollutants. Globally, an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded annually, making them the most common type of litter on beaches over the past three decades.

Every egg cell and sperm cell depends on meiosis, a tightly choreographed process in which chromosomes find their partners, exchange genetic material, and then divide. When meiosis goes awry in humans, the consequences can include infertility, miscarriage, and birth defects. A new study from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, published in Science Advances, shows that the molecular machinery guiding this process is more widely shared across animals than expected, and more flexible. The surprise was that familiar-looking parts were not always doing the same jobs, revealing an unexpected flexibility in how meiosis works across evolution.