Today’s Popular Posts
- .
Popular Posts
- ,
Tag Archives: biochemistry
DNA Computing: Advances in organic circuits
DNA logic gate components……Credit: Royal Publishing Society Let’s come at computers from a different angle for a moment. An alien species lands on earth. Their spaceship doesn’t look like a spaceship. It looks like a very large blob, of sorts. It’s a blob because the whole thing is organic, not a scrap of metal on [...]
Posted in Impact: Computer Power Also tagged DNA computing, logic gates, nanotechnology, organic, Qian, synthetic biology, Winfree Leave a comment
Proteins and quantum transition: Instant shape-shifting
Every once in a great while a piece of very interesting science comes along, quietly, until more and more people notice that not only is important but it may be right. Then scientists get into high gear and start doing more intensive experimenting. Sometimes the science press or even the popular media catch wind of [...]
Posted in Impact: Proteomics Also tagged amino acids, configuration, DNA, Lu, Luo, protein, protein folding, proteomics, quantum folding, quantum mechanics, quantum transition Leave a comment
Hoogsteen base pairs: An alternate structure in DNA
Reverse Hoogsteen base pairing…..Wikipedia Commons I know some of my biases. One of them is knee-jerk skepticism about taking little-tested scientific results and blowing them up to “…a cure for cancer” or “…revolutionize the electronics industry.” However, like most people I also have a bias to be curious about interesting, if somewhat unusual scientific findings. [...]
Posted in Impact: DNA Decoding Also tagged base pairs, DNA, double-helix, epigenetics, genetic coding, genetics, histones, Hoogsteen, NMR, proteins, RNA 3 Comments
An odd couple: Arsenic and Life
It was unlikely that GFAJ-1 of the Halomonadaceae family of Gammaproteobacteria would grip the imagination; but it did. Of course, it did because instead of the long scientific name or the cryptic GFAJ-1, it was simply called Alien Life! This, of course, caused a minor sensation. It was even covered by the non-science media. The [...]
Posted in Impact: Origin of Life Also tagged alien life, arsenic, arsenic based life, DNA, GFAJ-1, origin of life, phosphorus, RNA, Wolfe-Simon Leave a comment
Histones: DNA packaging and much more
DNA winds around histones….Credit: Max Planck Society Most everybody knows that DNA is the carrier of the genetic code, the instructions for how life reproduces, grows, and maintains. Cell biologists have long known that DNA comes with a very complex packaging material, proteins called histones, which help the 2 meter (6 foot) strand of DNA [...]
Posted in Impact: DNA Decoding Also tagged cell biology, DNA, epigenetics, fruit fly, gene, gene expression, histones, nucleus 1 Comment
Found: Another molecule needed at the origin of life
Very often important science is constructed by a myriad of small advances in knowledge. This is almost certainly going to be true for answering one of the big questions in biology: “How did life on Earth originate?” It’s been known for a long time that it probably originated where there was a concentrated mixture of [...]
Posted in News: Origin of Life Also tagged DNA, ethidium, intercalator, oligonucleotides, organic compound, origin of life, paleochemistry, polymer, RNA Leave a comment
Ribozymes and the origin of life
It could be called the search for the origin of life, but instead of a sweeping theory (primordial soup and lightning), microbiologists are concentrating on the many pieces that, one way or another, came together to constitute ‘life.’ Some new research from a team at the University of Colorado (Boulder, USA) points to the smallest [...]
Posted in News: Origin of Life Also tagged enzyme, microbiology, origin of life, primordial soup, proteins, ribozyme, RNA Leave a comment
Small RNA: New pathways for gene regulation?
Sometimes research discovers more than expected. (It could be called serendipity.) In this case, researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Berlin (Germany) were exploring the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which is a microscopic beasty that lives in the gut of about 50% of humanity. H. pylori, as it is abbreviated, has been linked to a [...]
Posted in Impact: DNA Decoding Also tagged DNA, genetics, Helicobacter pylori, junk DNA, pathogen, RNA, sRNA, transcription Leave a comment
Disease linked genes have environmental factors too
Within the human body there are few diseases that aren’t influenced by some kind of environmental factors (stress, obesity, smoking, lack of sleep). Put another way, even diseases that have a genetic link (cancer, heart disease, diabetes) are not fully explained by genetics – environmental factors also play a role. Teasing apart the ‘who does [...]
Posted in News: Cell Biology Also tagged DNA, environmental factors, gene expression, genes, genetics, microbiology Leave a comment
There’s more to gene expression than biochemistry
At a guess, ninety-nine percent of biologists’ attention to DNA and gene expression is based on biochemistry. That’s good, since the biochemistry is obviously important and difficult enough to analyze. However, there is something else – it’s called physics. Cells, cell components, and DNA all exist in the physical world and therefore are also affected [...]
Posted in News: Cell Biology Also tagged biophysics, cells, DNA, gene, gene expression, lasers, mechanical stress, physics Leave a comment
Is it goodbye to “Primordial soup?”
Over the years how many times have you encountered the term ‘primordial soup’ to explain the ferment in which life originated on Earth? The idea of a kind of organic broth in Earth’s early waters, struck by lightning, ultraviolet light, or some other catalyst, and producing slowly but surely the various compounds that eventually take [...]
Posted in Impact: Origin of Life Also tagged biology, cell, chemiosmosis, geochemistry, ions, LUCA, membrane, origin of life, proton gradient Leave a comment
Signs of LRF (Lab Rat Fever)
Work in a modern biochemistry lab has its good sides and bad sides – like most workplaces. On the other hand, people who have never worked in a ‘laboratory’ (which is most of us) may be surprised by some subtle, and not so subtle, differences between the lab and other places of work. For example, [...]
The race for safe stem cells
I’m loath to call anything in science a ‘race,’ since modern society is being overloaded with the race metaphor (politics, for example). There is the example of Watson and Crick racing the Pauling team to nail down the shape of DNA, but on the whole ‘racing’ in science is usually at-a-distance, not foot-to-foot. However when [...]
Posted in News: Stem Cells Also tagged cell, cell biology, DNA, genes, iPS, stem cells Leave a comment
Stem cell converts
Along many different pathways scientists are learning how to re-program stem cells into a variety of other cells. Some of the crucial genes have been identified, and certain chemicals have been used to manipulate their properties. A new study, reported in Stem Cell Digest, has made initial steps in a better way to convert stem [...]
Mapping human genome variations
The mapping of the human genome was a monumental achievement; however, it was always intended to be just a starting point. Where has the follow-up work gone? One area is mapping of copy number variants. Normally our (non-sex) chromosomes come in twos (humans are said to be diploid), but the machinery of DNA reproduction relatively [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding Also tagged chromosomes, copy number variants, DNA, genes, genome Leave a comment
Forming the double helix – learning more about hybridization
Our knowledge of cell biology, of genetics, indeed of life itself has centered on the role of DNA. Yet since the structure of DNA was first elucidated by Watson and Crick more than fifty years ago, we are still attempting to explain the intricate processes involving DNA. One of these processes, DNA hybridization, is the [...]
Posted in News: Cell Biology Also tagged biology, cell biology, DNA, double-helix, genes, hybridization, RNA Leave a comment
More molecular medical delivery
One of the most important areas of nanotech research and development is the area of nanoscale delivery systems for drugs and genetic material. Advances occur frequently. Here’s another one: Theresa M. Reineke, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Science, and colleagues in her lab at Virginia Tech and at the University of Cincinnati [...]
Posted in News: Nanomedicine Also tagged biomarkers, cell biology, DNA, microbiology, nano-medicine, nanotechnology Leave a comment
Nano-coating for better neuro-implants
One of the key difficulties with all bio-implants is rejection by the body. Traditionally, rejection had to be fought with relatively powerful immuno-suppressant drugs that tended to have severe side-effects. A lot of effort has gone into finding less problematic ways of reducing rejection, and this new study using nanotechnology is promising: The new brain [...]
Posted in News: Nanomedicine Also tagged implants, nanotechnology, nanotubes, neuroscience Leave a comment
Learning over time better than cramming
We are just beginning to learn how memory works at the molecular and genetic level. Observations about how memory works are now acquiring fundamental explanations. For example: A new study from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro) of McGill University reveals that different patterns of training and learning lead to different types of [...]
Give memory a rest
It’s been known for some time that there’s a correlation between sleep, rest, and memory. For example, it’s been shown that people who take naps while studying retain more information. A new study from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and a team lead by Professor Yi Zhong has revealed a biochemical and genetic basis for this [...]
Posted in News: Neuroscience Also tagged genes, memory, neuroscience, Noonan's disease Leave a comment
Can we stimulate repair of old muscles?
Yes, we probably can stimulate more repair of muscle cells in older people. Berkeley — A study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has identified critical biochemical pathways linked to the aging of human muscle. By manipulating these pathways, the researchers were able to turn back the clock on old human muscle, [...]
Posted in News: Extending Lifespan Also tagged aging, cancer, gerontology, muscles, pathways, stem cells Leave a comment
Synthetic biology: Making new proteins with E. coli by adding DNA