Recent News
- Found: Another molecule needed at the origin of life
- For real: A new way to produce electricity
- New: Single molecule sensor array
- Finally(?)…artificially making blood stem cells in quantity
- Update: Chinese space station
- Looking at the strange face of antimatter
- Life on Mars, if it exists, is below the surface
- A different kind of lens for time
- Oh please, “skinput”
- Update: More Moon water
- Cutting cancer cell immortality short
- First time: Watching the unfolding story of proteins in living cells
- Newly named: Copernicum (element 112)
- Making jet fuel from biomass
- Nanobubbles are really slick
Tag Archives: genome
Can culture change the genome?
Almost from the beginning of our knowledge of genetics, it’s been asked, “Can the way we (humans) live change our genetics?” These days this is much the same as asking if culture can change the genome. It’s actually a relatively old question.
The question got its biggest boost from one who is now a boogeyman for [...]
Posted in Impact: Genetic Modification Also tagged biology, culture, DNA, EDAR, epigenetics, evolution, genes, genetic modification, genetics, Lamarck, molecular biology, RNA 1 Comment
Waking the dead
Waking the dead. This was the actual title of a press release from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). What will the media of scientific weirdness make of this (not to mention the tabloids)? They’d make nothing of it; if they actually read the release. “Waking the dead” is a fanciful notion, something like a poet [...]
New study: Genetic variations associated with aging
Sometimes the shortest distance to new knowledge is a lot of repetitious work – like analyzing 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome. Researchers at King’s College London (UK), Leicester University (UK), and the University of Groningen (Netherlands) were on the trail of locating genes associated with aging. This is part of the (perhaps) [...]
Posted in News: Extending Lifespan Also tagged aging, chromosomes, DNA, genetic, gerontology, telomere, TERC Leave a comment
Stem cell epigenomic development mapped
Completing the map of the human genome, back in 2000 and 2003, was a monumental task and a milestone on the road to understanding our genetics. Here’s another milestone: A map that shows in detail how the human genome is modified during embryonic development. Just completed and published by a team of researchers from the [...]
Posted in News: Stem Cells Also tagged DNA methylation, genetics, genome map, methyl, mRNA, pluripotent, stem cells Leave a comment
Brain cancer genome sequenced
The cost of sequencing a human genome has come down, way down; and the value of doing it is going up. Here’s a very good example: scientists at the University of California Los Angeles (USA) recently completed the sequencing of the DNA from a type of brain cancer cell line, a glioblastoma known as U87. [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cure Also tagged brain, cancer, DNA, GBM, genetic, glioblastoma, U87 Leave a comment
Common diseases: Rare gene mutations are important
Recall seeing a headline like this: “Gene discovered that causes cancer”? Over the past decade or so such headlines have been frequent. The advent of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), looking through the whole human genome to find variant genes, has uncovered literally thousands of relationships between common gene mutations and various forms of cancer and [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding Also tagged bioinformatics, DNA, genetics, GWAS, mutations Leave a comment
Corn (maize) genome sequenced
Sequencing of this or that animal or plant genome is becoming fairly routine; but this one – sequencing of the maize genome – is something of a milestone. Maize, or as the Yanks say ‘corn’ is one of the world’s great cash crops. Maize has been subject to selective breeding for centuries, but armed with [...]
Evolution seen through 10K vertebrate genomes
Some are calling it a ‘genome zoo.’ Others say it will be the world’s greatest menagerie of vertebrate genomes. Yes, you could say that about the launch of the Genome 10K Community of Scientists (G10KCOS), but this massive project – in its way at least as ambitious as the famed Human Genome Project – is [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding Also tagged DNA, DNA sequencing, evolution, G10KCOS, species, vertebrate genome Leave a comment
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 [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding Also tagged biochemistry, chromosomes, copy number variants, DNA, genes Leave a comment
New study: Metagenomics gets a gut feel