54 posts tagged with genes and genetics.
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Cocoon
Old mice grow young again in study. Can people do the same? - "In Boston labs, old, blind mice have regained their eyesight, developed smarter, younger brains and built healthier muscle and kidney tissue. On the flip side, young mice have prematurely aged, with devastating results to nearly every tissue in their bodies." [more inside]
Cells, is there anything they can't do?
@SCOTTeHENSLEY: "We developed a new multivalent mRNA vaccine against all known influenza virus subtypes. Our study describing the vaccine was just published..." [more inside]
splice/never let me go: I can't wait to see you lace your shoes*
1st synthetic mouse embryos — complete with beating hearts and brains — created with no sperm, eggs or womb - "For the first time, scientists have created mouse embryos in the lab without using any eggs or sperm and watched them grow outside the womb. To achieve this feat, the researchers used only stem cells and a spinning device filled with shiny glass vials." [more inside]
Retron Library Recombineering
Scientists Have Created A New Gene-Editing Tool That Could Outperform CRISPR - "It is faster and simpler than CRISPR, enabling millions of genetic experiments to be performed simultaneously." [more inside]
minimal cells
Scientists Create Simple Synthetic Cell That Grows and Divides Normally - "New findings shed light on mechanisms controlling the most basic processes of life."[1] [more inside]
Skyscrapers for plants: maybe farm/forest arcologies should be things
Wheat yield potential in controlled-environment vertical farms - "Here we show that wheat grown on a single hectare of land in a 10-layer indoor vertical facility could produce ... 220 to 600 times the current world average annual wheat yield of 3.2 t/ha." (via) [more inside]
We’re all “mutants”.
The Lazy Design Aesthetic of Misrepresenting Genetic Conditions [Plenty of Minds]
“In books, films and video games, “mutant” is often used interchangeably with various terms that essentially mean “other”: “freak,” “monster,” “beast,” et cetera. However, it isn’t completely interchangeable because everyone understands that “mutant” has something to do with genetics and biological development. Therefore, the choice to use the term “mutant” implies that there is some biological, likely genetic, basis for why these “monsters” are the way they are. [...] It appears to me that the designers were just cribbing dysmorphic features that occur in real life and applying them to the game’s monsters, then naming them “mutants” and going on their way. Why do they look the way they are? Because they’re “mutants.” No additional thought went into that.”Michael California draws upon his background as a geneticist to compliment a discussion of Rage 2‘s industry-standard ableism with an explanation of why the “mutant” tropes of disfigurement and disability widely perpetuated in popular media make no scientific sense whatsoever. [YouTube][Rage 2 Launch Trailer] [more inside]
Higher Steaks
Will 2019 be the year of lab-grown meat? - "After years in the lab, will meats derived from animal cells finally break into the mainstream consumer market? The products could have huge implications for the planet, human health and animal welfare." [more inside]
Nexus 0.1
Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies - "A daring effort is under way to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing." [more inside]
"I think it's hard for people to come to terms with their own mortality"
Timothy Caulfield is the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, Professor & Research Director at the University of Alberta. He is also fascinated by pseudoscientific celebrity health advice, specifically how it's based on bad science, and on that topic, published the book Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? (Goodreads). He also uses his humour, quick wit and science knowledge to investigate trendy diets, ancient therapies, wellness and anti-aging products to separate science fact from fiction in a series called A User’s Guide to Cheating Death (YT, trailer). He's into his second season of six episodes each, streaming for free from Vision TV for folks in Canada, and all 12 episodes are available on Netflix, too. More below the break. [more inside]
Bringing Us One Step Closer to Our Real-Life Themyscira
Same-sex mouse parents give birth via gene editing: Scientists delivered pups with genetic material from two moms and two dads. But only pups with two moms survived to have babies themselves "In an important move for both science as well as Women Who Are Over This Shit, researchers in China have just helped a pair of female mouse parents give birth to healthy pups via gene editing and stem cells, no male mice involved."
The Viruses That Neanderthals Spread to Humans
Deep in Human DNA, a Gift From the Neanderthals. "Long ago, Neanderthals probably infected modern humans with viruses, perhaps even an ancient form of H.I.V. But our extinct relatives also gave us genetic defenses." "The two ancient hominin groups swapped genes, diseases, and genes that protect against diseases, according to a new study."
The Corn of the Future Is Hundreds of Years Old and Makes Its Own Mucus
The Wonder Plant That Could Slash Fertilizer Use - "An indigenous Mexican corn gets its nitrogen from the air."
And the plants and the animals eat each other
Insect farms gear up to feed soaring global protein demand - "Layers of squirming black soldier fly larvae fill large aluminum bins stacked 10-high in a warehouse outside of Vancouver. They are feeding on stale bread, rotting mangoes, overripe cantaloupe and squishy zucchini." [more inside]
When a gene-edited butterfly flaps its wings, evolution evolves
Scientists Can Now Repaint Butterfly Wings - "Thanks to CRISPR, scientists are studying animal evolution in ways that were previously thought to be impossible." [more inside]
GM Mosquitoes: What Could Go Wrong?
Inside the insectary - "These gene drives, they're able to copy themselves. So instead of half of the offspring inheriting the gene drive, almost all of them do. So what happens is that it spreads and it spreads and it spreads. And this is the fantastic thing. Because it allows that gene to be selfish in a population. And in a very short amount of time you can actually transform an entire wild population into a modified population. It's powerful." (previously: 1,2,3)
Meet Luca, the Ancestor of All Living Things
Genes that do the same thing in a human and a mouse are generally related by common descent from an ancestral gene in the first mammal. So by comparing their sequence of DNA letters, genes can be arranged in evolutionary family trees, a property that enabled Dr. Martin and his colleagues to assign the six million genes to a much smaller number of gene families. Of these, only 355 met their criteria for having probably originated in Luca, the joint ancestor of bacteria and archaea.Meet Luca, the Ancestor of All Living Things [more inside]
The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene
It seemed absolutely crazy. The idea that an Iowa housewife, equipped with the cutting-edge medical tool known as Google Images, would make a medical discovery about a pro athlete who sees doctors and athletic trainers as part of her job? via
Genegineering
Humans 2.0 - "With CRISPR, scientists can change, delete, and replace genes in any animal, including us. Working mostly with mice, researchers have already deployed the tool to correct the genetic errors responsible for sickle-cell anemia, muscular dystrophy, and the fundamental defect associated with cystic fibrosis. One group has replaced a mutation that causes cataracts; another has destroyed receptors that H.I.V. uses to infiltrate our immune system." [more inside]
Most assuredly *not* 42
This is my vision of life. A conversation with evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins. (Video and transcript)
Charging toward an era of genetically modified humans
The CRISPR Revolution [ungated: 1,2,3] - "Biologists continue to hone their tools for deleting, replacing or otherwise editing DNA and a strategy called CRISPR has quickly become one of the most popular ways to do genome engineering. Utilizing a modified bacterial protein and a RNA that guides it to a specific DNA sequence, the CRISPR system provides unprecedented control over genes in many species, including perhaps humans. This control has allowed many new types of experiments, but also raised questions about what CRISPR can enable." [more inside]
Engineering the Perfect Baby
Neanderthal and Sapiens, sitting in a tree...
"Scientists have reconstructed the genome of a man who lived 45,000 years ago, by far the oldest genetic record ever obtained from modern humans. The research, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, provided new clues to the expansion of modern humans from Africa about 60,000 years ago, when they moved into Europe and Asia.
And the genome, extracted from a fossil thighbone found in Siberia, added strong support to a provocative hypothesis: Early humans interbred with Neanderthals."
plant sex in silico
Monsanto Is Going Organic in a Quest for the Perfect Veggie - "The lettuce, peppers, and broccoli—plus a melon and an onion, with a watermelon soon to follow—aren't genetically modified at all. Monsanto created all these veggies using good old-fashioned crossbreeding, the same technology that farmers have been using to optimize crops for millennia. That doesn't mean they are low tech, exactly. Stark's division is drawing on Monsanto's accumulated scientific know-how to create vegetables that have all the advantages of genetically modified organisms without any of the Frankenfoods ick factor." [more inside]
PATIENT ZERO
"‘The gene does not lead,’ she says. ‘It follows.’"
Intelligence Tests
Is Psychometric g a Myth? - "As an online discussion about IQ or general intelligence grows longer, the probability of someone linking to statistician Cosma Shalizi's essay g, a Statistical Myth approaches 1. Usually the link is accompanied by an assertion to the effect that Shalizi offers a definitive refutation of the concept of general mental ability, or psychometric g." [more inside]
Make Babies
"Older parenthood will upend American society." "Is waiting to have kids a big mistake?" "Why do women believe they can delay children for so long?" "Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develops autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age."
Cat Color Genetics
After decades of breeding, the complexity of cat color genetics is quite well understood. Genes which control pigmentation, hair length, color dilution, banding (agouti), white fur (dominant, spotting, or albino, sometimes linked with deafness), tabby patterns, and more combine to create a wide spectrum of possibilities. Specific traits such as white gloving among Birman cats and the amber color found only in Norwegian Forest Cats (which comes from a single female born in 1981!) have also been isolated and studied, and can be affordably tested for.
On top of all that, fur color is epigenetic as well as genetic, and sometimes responds to the cat's environment. If you clone a calico cat, you get a kitten which doesn't have a similar coat due to X-inactivation, and pointed cats (such as Burmese, Siamese, and Tonkinese) have temperature-sensitive coloration. [more inside]
Collect 'Em All!
This is a game about breeding flowers. Each flower's traits are determined by its genes. Pick two flowers and their genes combine to create new variations. There is no aim in this game... Feel free to set yourself one. -- Rare Breeds: Petunia. (Flash.) [more inside]
Mushroom Sex
"People who use sows to hunt for truffles often find it hard to prevent a sex-crazed animal from eating the truffle she has found and may lose fingers in the attempt." (via) The NYT on decoding the genome of the Périgord Black Truffle . Attempts to make truffles cheaper and more accessible in the past have been met with some resistance.
Learn.Genetics
grumblebee's post about cell size and scale the other day was quite fascinating. Pulling back to the home for that site, the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah delivers educational materials on genetics, bio-science and health topics ranging from stem cells to gene therapy, and from epigenetics to heredity. Explore the neurobiology of normal and addicted brains and the genetic contribution to this chronic disease.
The Genomic Self
My Genome, My Self: Steven Pinker considers what we can expect from personal genomics. Searching for Intelligence in Our Genes: Carl Zimmer looks at the hunt to learn about the role of genes in intelligence.
Humans are evolving rapidly
Humans are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, according to a new study published in PNAS. "The massive growth of human populations has led to far more genetic mutations, and every mutation that is advantageous to people has a chance of being selected and driven toward fixation. We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals", says lead author John Hawks. [more inside]
Kinseyian mathematics, of a kind
The "Darwinian paradox" of homosexuality presents the conundrum of how a potential genetic basis for homosexual behavior could provide a survival benefit to offpsring and extend through generations, when sexual reproduction would seem to place strong selection pressure against such a "gene". Recently developed mathematical models (PDF) from researchers Sergey Gavrilets and William Rice not only show how a "gay gene" might proliferate within a population, but also provides testable hypotheses, including predictions of "widespread bisexuality" (subscription req'd).
green, black, brown, blue?
Not settled after all partial genetic explaination of eye color. it's not one classic dominant/recessive allele a la the monk Mendel. three known + unknown genes involved, everybody's still beautiful.
Deafness In White Cats
Ah, science.
New research takes steps towards finding the "gay genes." A study conducted on gay brothers in more than 100 families found several genetic regions of similarity with linkage to sexual orientation. This is kind of dense (scroll to the bottom of the page for the FAQ), but that's because it hasn't been written up in the press so there are only journal doc's and scientific summaries available.
This is the press release, which is clearer (Microsoft Word).
This is the article on the study, as published in the journal Human Genetics (PDF).
This is the press release, which is clearer (Microsoft Word).
This is the article on the study, as published in the journal Human Genetics (PDF).
Taming of the Shrew
Extinct is forever. Or is it? Scientists are hard at work reconstructing entire genomes of our common ancestors. The present technology is a far cry from Jurassic Park, but we're getting there.
Science
In terms of our genes, we humans are all the same -- except
for the ways in which we're different. Pharmacogenomics has for years been touted as the ultimate benefit of the genomics revolution. But to many, this revolution has a troubling side.
Challenging Darwin: Is sex really all about the genes?
Author challenges Darwin's theory of "sexual selection." To Darwin, mutations that don't enhance survival, like peacocks' tails, must be aids to attracting mates to pass on genes. Homosexuality, therefore, is to Darwin and the Christian-right both an unnatural aberration. But with ever growing evidence of homsexual behavior in animals, from bonobos to penguins, isn't it time that Darwin's theory get replaced?
The basics for being.
Gene Stories. "If your parents kept on having children, they’d have to visit the maternity hospital another million billion times to stand a chance of producing another child with your genes" (unless you're an identical twin of course).
Gene Prevents 'Brains Everywhere'
Gene Prevents 'Brains Everywhere' The human version of the gene probably is not involved in keeping the human brain inside the skull, but likely plays some other role in nervous system development in human embryos, says Alejandro Sanchez Alvarado, a developmental biologist at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Cool.
Need a user's manual for your DNA?
Need a user's manual for your DNA? Sure that there's some bug in there you could fix if you knew how to? Here are the tools you'll need. I know the web isn't relly about one-to-many publishing, but just sometimes it does it wonderfully well.
Orlando police find crack cocaine on Gov. Bush's daughter
Orlando police find crack cocaine on Gov. Bush's daughter Knowing that W struggled as an alcoholic and with cocaine, and seeing his daughters hit the headlines with their excesses, I wondered if there was a genetic pre-disposition toward addiction. Apparently, this theory is not new.
Turning on a single gene
Turning on a single gene makes mouse brains grow huge, and fold in the skull similarly to human brains. Fancy discussing Derida over tea with a rodent? more inside...
A procedure known as haploidisation
A procedure known as haploidisation could allow lesbian couples to have a baby that shares both their genes. The procedure may be available in 18 months' time. Sperm? We don't need no stinking sperm!
Scientists are making DNA that uses letters other than AGCT
Scientists are making DNA that uses letters other than AGCT
Underlying the chemicals is a code. DNA is composed of pairs of four types of proteins. This project at Scripps Research Institute is attempting to design a DNA which uses different proteins to convey genetic information. The ultimate goal would be to have a functioning organism with a genetic code that uses a different "alphabet" to "communicate" the same "message" You know what this means? If they can get it to work, language wins! The world will truly be proven to be a "discursive" formation. (The language metaphor comes courtesy of the NYT, but I believe it is more than apt.)
Underlying the chemicals is a code. DNA is composed of pairs of four types of proteins. This project at Scripps Research Institute is attempting to design a DNA which uses different proteins to convey genetic information. The ultimate goal would be to have a functioning organism with a genetic code that uses a different "alphabet" to "communicate" the same "message" You know what this means? If they can get it to work, language wins! The world will truly be proven to be a "discursive" formation. (The language metaphor comes courtesy of the NYT, but I believe it is more than apt.)
In favour of the death penalty?
In favour of the death penalty? Don't worry, it's in the genes
"Mr. Dyson, I'm pleased to inform you that your grandmother didn't sleep around."
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