Daily briefing: Primates might have evolved in the cold climate of North America

""For decades, the idea that primates evolved in warm, tropical forests has gone unquestioned," said evolutionary biologist and study co-author Jorge Avaria-Llautureo. "Our findings flip that narrative entirely.""

"To reduce unjustified requests for citation, study author Adrian Barnett suggests that reviewers should always state in their review comments when they recommend authors cite their work and why."

"The neural circuits that control thirst are located deep in primitive brain structures, and scientists are only recently getting to grips with how they function."

Fossil data, paleoclimate reconstructions and statistical modelling indicate that the common ancestors of all modern primates likely lived through cold North American winters instead of exclusively in warm tropical forests. Climate mapping and location modelling change expectations about early primate habitats and evolutionary context. Analysis of 18,400 articles from F1000Research, Wellcome Open Research, Gates Open Research and Open Research Europe shows that reviewers who are cited within a manuscript are more likely to approve it after the first review, prompting calls for reviewers to state when and why they request citations. Neural circuits controlling thirst lie deep in primitive brain structures and are only recently being characterized.

Read at Nature