Researchers are starting to harness the potential of this much-hyped gene editing technique – with coming applications in medicine, biology and agriculture.
Our cells have a built-in genetic clock, tracking time… but how accurately?
Stopwatch image via www.shutterstock.com.
How do scientists figure out when evolutionary events – like species splitting away from a common ancestor – happened? It turns out our DNA is a kind of molecular clock, keeping time via genetic changes.
How does one set of genes result in huge horns in males and none at all in females?
Alex Wild
How can the same basic genome produce such different forms in the two sexes of a single species? It turns out one gene can encode for various things, depending on the order its instructions are read.
Tools of diabetes treatment almost always include improved diet and regular exercise.
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Diabetes, which afflicts 29 million people in the U.S., remains a difficult disease to treat. Read how an algorithm devised by MIT researchers could help.
Dental calculus deposits show this Neadertal was eating poplar, a source of aspirin, and moulded vegetation including Penicillium fungus, source of a natural antibiotic.
Paleoanthropology Group MNCN-CSIC
A new report from the National Academies of Science and Medicine outlines conditions that have to be met before gene editing that results in heritable genomic changes can be considered.
Every single Cavendish banana plant worldwide is genetically identical. This vast monoculture sets them up for disastrous disease outbreaks. But researchers have ideas on how to protect the crop.
Do we contain the most elaborate set of instructions?
Genome image via www.shutterstock.com.
Many of the genes and transcripts associated with schizophrenia are only found in humans, which makes studying the disorder difficult. But scientists are slowly making progress.
Cutting and pasting DNA – it’s a bit like fitting in LEGO blocks.
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