Today’s Popular Posts
- .
Popular Posts
- ,
Tag Archives: organic chemistry
Life on Titan through a hydrocarbon haze
The hazy methane-red surface of Titan. NASA/JPL Even before the wildly successful Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its lunar neighborhood, scientists have looked at the largest moon, Titan, studied it with telescopes and other instruments, noted its methane-rich atmosphere, its extreme cold (around 90 degrees Kelvin, -183C or -290F), and wondered if somehow in its [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life Also tagged acetylene, astrobiology, Cassini, Huygens, hydrogen, methane-based life, NASA, Saturn, Titan Leave a comment
Small steps toward understanding the epigenome
“You can think of it this way,” said Ren. “Neurons and skin cells share the identical set of genetic material – DNA – yet their structure and function are very different. The difference can be attributed to differences in their epigenome. This is analogous to computer hardware and software. You can load the same computer [...]
Posted in Impact: Cell Biology Also tagged adult cells, cell biology, chromatin, DNA, epigenetics, epigenome, fibroblasts, genetics, histones, mitochondria, nESC, nucleus, RNA, stem cells 1 Comment
From Prussian blue, the compounds of life
Piecing together the story of life’s origin just got more colorful. (I couldn’t help using this trite journalistic phrase, sorry.) Prussian blue, the famous blue color used in dyes and blueprints, is also one of the oldest complex organic compounds known. Now, thanks to recent research at the Astrobiology Centre (INTA-CSIC, Madrid, Spain), it appears [...]
Posted in News: Origins of Life Also tagged DNA, origin of life, prebiotic, Prussian blue, RNA, urea Leave a comment
New study: It’s possible life originated in ice