Claims extracted
17
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
12%
2 of 17 hedged
("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
52/100
The Globe and Mail's corrections and
hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Science
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
If someone threw a party for every type of mammal on Earth, a large portion of the guest list would be taken up by bats.
asserted
portion → throw → bats
Bats account for about 20 per cent of total mammal diversity, with more than 1,500 documented species worldwide.
asserted
Bats → account → species
Now, a multiyear, international effort to explore the underlying genetics behind that diversity has yielded a new family tree and a better understanding of where and when bats arose.
asserted
bats → explore → tree
The results, published online Wednesday by the journal Nature, suggest that bats, with their distinctive mode of powered flight, first arose in Europe some 65 million years ago.
asserted
bats → publish → Europe
That’s about 10 million years earlier than the oldest known bat fossils and coincides with the abrupt disappearance of dinosaurs along with three quarters of Earth’s plant and animal species in a mass extinction event.
asserted
That → ’ → event
If bats first appeared at that time, it implies they were able to exploit an ecological niche that was available after the mass extinction but not filled by birds.
asserted
that → appear → birds
The genetic analysis suggests that bats evolved their powers of echolocation at a similarly early date.
uncertain
bats → suggest → date
This method of using soundwaves to identify both obstacles and prey made bats ideal nocturnal hunters.
asserted
bats → use → obstacles
More than 100 researchers from 64 countries were involved in the effort, called Bat1K. It included sequencing and comparing the genomes of 103 species, which cover each of the 21 known families of bats.
asserted
which → involve → bats
About one-third of the species sampled in the study came from just one source: a freezer at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto that contains tissue gathered over decades from a wide range of bat species.
asserted
that → sample → species
Burton Lim, assistant curator of mammals at the museum and a co-author of the study, said the ROM’s collection proved invaluable because researchers opted to store the bat tissue in liquid nitrogen, which they brought with them into the field.
asserted
they → say → field
“The colder the better, to keep the DNA intact,” Dr. Lim said.
asserted
Lim → keep → DNA
The preservation enabled researchers to assemble whole bat genomes from longer strands of DNA than would have been available through other methods.
asserted
preservation → enable → methods
In addition to comparing different species more easily, it meant researchers could determine that the ancestral bat genome was likely organized into 26 chromosomes.
uncertain
genome → compare → chromosomes
“This is a landmark study for bat biology, and for comparative genomics more generally,” said Josefin Stiller, a biologist at the University of Copenhagen, in an accompanying commentary in Nature.
asserted
Stiller → say → Nature
Dr. Lim added that in addition to illuminating bat evolution, results from the Bat1K project can inform both conservation and health.
asserted
results → add → conservation
In a 2025 study, the project revealed the genetic information it gleaned about how bats tolerate viruses, including those that can be passed to humans, such as the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and COVID-19.
asserted
that → reveal → SARS
The Aporia
