"Dogs have been with us a lot longer than cats.  Somewhere between fifteen and thirty thousand years..."  Citizen Canine: 1 of 3: Our Evolving Relationship with Cats and Dogs by David Grimm.

"A fascinating account of how our conceptions of dogs and cats are changing - and what the outcome may mean for their futures. I was gripped throughout."—John Bradshaw, New York Times bestselling author of Dog Sense and Cat Sense

“Grimm traces the evolution of today's pets, from once being considered feral beasts and valueless subjects to family members and quasicitizens. The author's research includes fascinating travels across the country interviewing detectives investigating animal cruelty cases, soldiers training military working dogs, and animal law attorneys, and he also visits a wolf sanctuary…Engrossing, enjoyable, and well-researched.”—Library Journal, starred
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“Grimm, deputy news editor at Science, investigates the ever-changing roles played by cats and dogs throughout history and travels the U.S. speaking to those on the cutting edge of animal science and welfare. [His] most valuable contribution…is his reasoned and well-researched discussion of the pet “personhood” movement, particularly its legal implications for veterinarians, scientific research, and agriculture.”—Publishers Weekly

“CITIZEN CANINE is a fascinating journey through time and space, documenting our relationship with our closest domestic friends. Meticulously researched and brilliantly written, Grimm's work is relevant, not just to every dog and cat lover, but anyone interested in how we came to be the humans we are today.” —Dr. Brian Hare, Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, and author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Genius of Dogs​

AMAZON

https://www.amazon.com/Restless-Creatures-Story-Life-Movements/dp/0465065724/ref=mthardcover?encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

Crows are judgmental: Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness.by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

We generally fall asleep and then wake up at least 25,000 to 30,000 times throughout our lifetime. Transitions between sleep and waking appear to occur seamlessly, but the underlying mechanisms are extraordinarily complex. There is much interest in characterizing the brain's neuronal circuitry that control these shifts in state, and recent research has pointed to specific populations of neurons in the brainstem, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, and thalamus. On page 957 of this issue, Hayashi et al. (1) report that a specific population of neurons in the early developing hindbrain gives rise to subpopulations that contribute to the sleep-wake circuitry.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6263/909.summary?sid=1c8379a8-11f2-49ff-9888-182905703aad

The Plague in pre-history. Carl Zimmer, NYT.
But in a new study, published on Thursday in the journal Cell, researchers report that the bacterium was infecting people as long as 5,000 years ago.
"...Exactly what those early outbreaks were like is impossible to know. But the authors of the new study suggest that plague epidemics in the Bronze Age may have opened the doors to waves of migrants in regions decimated by disease.
“To my mind, this leaves little doubt that this has played a major role in those population replacements,” said Eske Willerslev, a co-author of the new study and the director of the Center for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.
"David M. Wagner, a microbial geneticist at Northern Arizona University who was not involved in the study, said that the new research should prompt other scientists to look at mysterious outbreaks in early history, such as the epidemic that devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian War. “It opens up whole new areas of research,” he said...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/science/in-ancient-dna-evidence-of-plague-much-earlier-than-previously-known.html?_r=0

"...New patients had slowed to a trickle in the Forest Region of southeastern Guinea, the center of the outbreak, and there had not been a report across the border in Liberia for four weeks. Sierra Leone, although surrounded by Guinea and Liberia, had not discovered a single confirmed case.

"Like the 10 Ebola crises he had handled before, in Uganda and Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, this first substantial outbreak in West Africa seemed to be burning itself out after a few months and a few hundred infections.

“This is close to over,” Dr. Rollin told himself, a view common among the virus hunters. “That’s it for this outbreak.”

"Or so he thought. In fact, Dr. Rollin and other well-intentioned veterans of past Ebola campaigns had tragically underestimated this outbreak, overlooking clues that now seem apparent. Viewing the West Africa epidemic through the prism of nearly two dozen previous outbreaks across the continent, they failed to appreciate that the 2014 version would be unique in catastrophic ways..."
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/30/health/how-ebola-roared-back.html

First flower petals were concentric circles of three. 

Though the team’s reconstructed ancestral flower doesn’t look radically different than many modern flowers, it does have a combination of traits not found today. Like many of today’s flowers, the putative ancestor contained both male and female parts on the same blossom. And the arrangement and numbers of its petals and its organs that shed and receive pollen all fall within the range of its modern descendants—no one trait stands out as obviously ancient. But no one current flower matches its form exactly, either. One discovery that will surprise some researchers is that its petals and other organs were organized in concentric circles in groups of three, rather than in spirals, the team reports today in Nature Communications.

Some of the earliest surviving branches in the family tree of flowering plants, such as the ancient Amborella shrub, have their petals arranged in spirals. Many researchers have assumed that the first flower was the same. But Hervé Sauquet, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Paris Sud, compares these plants to the ancient mammal group that contains platypuses—odd, egg-laying aquatic mammals living in Australia. Though some of their traits are likely remnants of their ancient origins, they’re also reflective of hundreds of millions of years of later evolution to their specific environments. “We’re just showing this applies to Amborella as well,” Sauquet says.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/world-s-first-flower-may-have-looked

The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future by Jim Robbins. 

A fascinating investigation into the miraculous world of birds and the powerful—and surprising—ways they enrich our lives and sustain the planet.

Our relationship to birds is different from our relationship to any other wild creatures. They are found virtually everywhere and we love to watch them, listen to them, keep them as pets, wear their feathers, even converse with them. Birds, Jim Robbins posits, are our most vital connection to nature. They compel us to look to the skies, both literally and metaphorically; draw us out into nature to seek their beauty; and let us experience vicariously what it is like to be weightless. Birds have helped us in so many of our human endeavors: learning to fly, providing clothing and food, and helping us better understand the human brain and body. And they even have much to teach us about being human in the natural world.

This book illuminates qualities unique to birds that demonstrate just how invaluable they are to humankind—both ecologically and spiritually. The wings of turkey buzzards influenced the Wright brothers’ flight design; the chickadee’s song is considered by scientists to be the most sophisticated language in the animal world and a “window into the evolution of our own language and our society”; and the quietly powerful presence of eagles in the disadvantaged neighborhood of Anacostia, in Washington, D.C., proved to be an effective method for rehabilitating the troubled young people placed in charge of their care.

Exploring both cutting-edge scientific research and our oldest cultural beliefs, Robbins moves these astonishing creatures from the background of our lives to the foreground, from the quotidian to the miraculous, showing us that we must fight to save imperiled bird populations and the places they live, for the sake of both the planet and humankind.

Praise for The Wonder of Birds
“A must-read, conveying much necessary information in easily accessible form and awakening one’s consciousness to what might otherwise be taken for granted . . . The Wonder of Birds reads like the story of a kid let loose in a candy store and given free rein to sample. That is one of its strengths: the convert’s view gives wide appeal to those who might never have known birds well.”—Bernd Heinrich, The Wall Street Journal

“Engaging, thoughtful . . . worthy of a place alongside David Attenborough’s documentary The Life of Birds or Graeme Gibson’s The Bedside Book of Birds . . . This offering will appeal to naturalists, anthropologists, linguists, and even philosophers as well as to lay readers.”—Library Journal

“In this deeply felt and well-supported argument for avians’ value to humankind, science writer Robbins hits the full trifecta for engrossing and satisfying nature writing.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Using enchanting stories and rich historical references, Jim Robbins explores the role of birds on the evolution of human self-awareness.”—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“It’s one for the birds—what a wonderful book! It will give you wings.”—Rita Mae Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Rubyfruit Jungle.

“The Wonder of Birds provides a great and well-timed gift: a portrait of the quiet miracles around us on each day of our ordinary lives.”—Michael Punke, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Revenant

“Jim Robbins writes masterfully, with lucid prose and deep insight into the human psyche and natural world.”—Peter Stark, author of Astoria
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https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Birds-Ourselves-Better-Future/dp/0812993535/ref=la_B001HPZMD2_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501803883&sr=1-1

Last Universal Common Ancestor. @nicholaswade

A surprisingly specific genetic portrait of the ancestor of all living things has been generated by scientists who say that the likeness sheds considerable light on the mystery of how life first emerged on Earth.

This venerable ancestor was a single-cell, bacterium-like organism. But it has a grand name, or at least an acronym. It is known as Luca, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, and is estimated to have lived some four billion years ago, when Earth was a mere 560 million years old.

The new finding sharpens the debate between those who believe life began in some extreme environment, such as in deep sea vents or the flanks of volcanoes, and others who favor more normal settings, such as the “warm little pond” proposed by Darwin.

The nature of the earliest ancestor of all living things has long been uncertain because the three great domains of life seemed to have no common point of origin. The domains are those of the bacteria, the archaea and the eukaryotes. Archaea are bacteria-like organisms but with a different metabolism, and the eukaryotes include all plants and animals.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/science/last-universal-ancestor.html?_r=0

​Is our microbiome our master? @carlzimmer @nyt

"...The idea that a simple organism could control a complex animal may sound like science fiction. In fact, there are many well-documented examples of parasites controlling their hosts.

Some species of fungi, for example, infiltrate the brains of ants and coax them to climb plants and clamp onto the underside of leaves. The fungi then sprout out of the ants and send spores showering onto uninfected ants below.

How parasites control their hosts remains mysterious. But it looks as if they release molecules that directly or indirectly can influence their brains.

Our microbiome has the biochemical potential to do the same thing. In our guts, bacteria make some of the same chemicals that our neurons use to communicate with one another, such as dopamine and serotonin. And the microbes can deliver these neurological molecules to the dense web of nerve endings that line the gastrointestinal tract.

A number of recent studies have shown that gut bacteria can use these signals to alter the biochemistry of the brain. Compared with ordinary mice, those raised free of germs behave differently in a number of ways. They are more anxious, for example, and have impaired memory.

Adding certain species of bacteria to a normal mouse’s microbiome can reveal other ways in which they can influence behavior. Some bacteria lower stress levels in the mouse. When scientists sever the nerve relaying signals from the gut to the brain, this stress-reducing effect disappears...."

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/science/our-microbiome-may-be-looking-out-for-itself.html?ref=science&_r=0

"..Researchers and the fishing industry have steadily learned more about the corals since the 1950s, and particularly in the last decade or so as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has used submersibles and remotely operated vehicles to probe the depths and capture new information, images and video.

Peter J. Auster, a marine biologist who is an emeritus professor at the University of Connecticut and senior research scientist at Mystic Aquarium, has studied the corals for 30 years and said that they had been found on steep slopes of seamounts and in canyons that were cut into the continental shelf.
“These are incredible landscapes,” he said.

Because the corals grow slowly, bottom-fishing for squid and fish could knock them over and the communities would not recover for many years. The canyons that are being considered for protection are, Dr. Auster said, refuges for organisms that used to be more widespread. “The choices are what we do with what’s left,” he added.

The group that makes the choices is the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. It is meeting in Raleigh, N.C., and the amendment under discussion would affect its regulations for mackerel, butterfish and squid fishing...."
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https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/science/atlantic-corals-colorful-and-vulnerable.html

“…Scientists have puzzled out profoundly important insights about how the brain works, like the way the mammalian brain navigates and remembers places, work that won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for a British-American and two Norwegians.

“Yet the growing body of data — maps, atlases and so-called connectomes that show linkages between cells and regions of the brain — represents a paradox of progress, with the advances also highlighting great gaps in understanding.

“So many large and small questions remain unanswered. How is information encoded and transferred from cell to cell or from network to network of cells? Science found a genetic code but there is no brain-wide neural code; no electrical or chemical alphabet exists that can be recombined to say “red” or “fear” or “wink” or “run.” And no one knows whether information is encoded differently in various parts of the brain.

“Brain scientists may speculate on a grand scale, but they work on a small scale. Sebastian Seung at Princeton, author of “Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are,” speaks in sweeping terms of how identity, personality, memory — all the things that define a human being — grow out of the way brain cells and regions are connected to each other. But in the lab, his most recent work involves the connections and structure of motion-detecting neurons in the retinas of mice….”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/learning-how-little-we-know-about-the-brain.html

“Woolly mammoths by the tens of thousands once roamed across ice age grasslands spanning Europe, Asia, and the northern reaches of North America. But after the global climate began warming some 12,000 years ago, mossy tundra began to replace grasses, depriving the massive animals—roughly the size of modern African elephants—of their most important food source. Human hunters further culled their numbers. Woolly mammoths went extinct on the mainland about 10,000 years ago, but small pocket populations persisted on islands, isolated from human contact.

Hoping to learn more about the last lonely days of the Wrangel Island mammoths, bioinformatics researcher Rebekah Rogers of the University of North Carolina in Charlotte and biologist Montgomery Slatkin of the University of California (UC), Berkeley, compared the complete DNA sequence from a 4300-year-old mammoth bone found on Wrangel Island with that of a 45,000-year-old specimen that lived on the Siberian mainland….”

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/last-lonely-woolly-mammoths-were-genetically-screwed

SMITHSONIAN- The Last Mammoths Died Isolated and Alone

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC- Wrangel Island; A Wildlife Haven

PHYSICS.ORG- The Genomic Meltdown Just Before Extinction

CSM- DNA Reveals Mammoths Secret