b5media.com

Advertise with us

Enjoying this blog? Check out the rest of the Health & Wellness Channel Subscribe to this Feed

Genetics and Health

October 6th, 2008

Links to Genetics this week

It’s Monday, and there’s plenty of catching up to do around the world of genetics. This week month -
The Broad Institute received an astonishing $400 million endowment from the donors that bear its name. The Institute helped mapped the full complement of the human genes. This record-setting gift will fund genomics research.
A melanoma cell […]

By Grace Ibay -- 0 comments

June 10th, 2008

Family feuds - the animals also keep their distance with relatives!

Closely related species of Pairie dog don’t live together (Photo credit Imperial College) Ever wondered why family feuds result in fighting relatives keeping their distance … often for a very long time? Well, reseachers at Imperial College, UK have observed that steering clear of your rels may have evolutionary beginnings. Mammals cannot share their habitat with closely […]

By Elaine -- 7 comments

June 2nd, 2008

Species protection - Pledge to set up deep sea nature reserve

(Photo credit: www.marinebio.org) 
At the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Bonn nearly 200 countries agreed on measures to protect the world’s most threatened wildlife.  They pledged:
1. To set up a deep-sea nature reserve and increase by tens of millions of hectares the area of land protected (the resulting protected area would be twice the size of Germany).
2. To […]

By Elaine -- 1 comment

June 1st, 2008

Stonehenge - a long-term cemetery or neolithic ‘Lourdes’?

 
Stonehenge, UK 
(Photo credit: www.activemind.com)
A topical article for me as I will be passing Stonehenge today.  It is an amazing feat of 4,500 year old primitive engineering and still provokes feelings of wonder and awe everytime I pass by, especially on solstice and equinox days.
Stonehenge served as a burial ground for much longer than had previously […]

By Elaine -- 0 comments

May 24th, 2008

Egyptian pharoah Akhenaten’s feminine appearance suggest gene defects

King Akhenaten (photo credit www.usu.edu) 
The feminine features and elongated head of ancient Egypt’s King Akhenaten may be attributed to two genetic defects called aromatose excess syndrome and craniosynostosis, reports Yale School of Medicine dermatology Professor Irwin Braverman, M.D.
Akhenaten, a pharaoh during Egypt’s 18th Dynasty credited with starting the practice of worshipping one God, fathered six children. […]

By Elaine -- 1 comment

May 21st, 2008

Extinct Tasmanian Tiger DNA ‘resurrected’

 (Tasmanian Tiger - photo credit www.bbc.co.uk/news)
Using transgenic mice, Australian and American researchers have shown that they can “resurrect” a snippet of DNA from the genome of an extinct animal — the Tasmanian tiger — and test its biological function in a living animal.   The last Tasmanian Tiger died in an Australian zoo in 1936 having […]

By Elaine -- 0 comments

May 4th, 2008

Human Genome - first map of cultural variations

A nationwide team of researchers, funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has produced the first sequence-based map of large-scale structural variation across the human genome.
Recently created maps such as the HapMap have catalogued the patterns of small-scale variations in the genome that […]

By Elaine -- 0 comments

April 22nd, 2008

Doggie DNA used to look into human psychiatric problems

 
KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco recently did a radio story about the UC San Francisco Canine Behavioral Genetics Project run in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania. The aims of the project are:
1. To explore the relationship between genes and behavior, both normal and abnormal, in domestic dogs.
2. To assess the amount and nature […]

By Elaine -- 1 comment

March 26th, 2008

1.2 million year old European human unearthed

(Picture courtesy of BBC News)
Scientists have discovered the oldest human remains in western Europe.
A jawbone and teeth discovered at the famous Atapuerca site in northern Spain have been dated between 1.1 and 1.2 million years old.
Scientists also found stone tools and animal bones with tell-tale cut marks from butchering by humans.
Its small size suggests […]

By Elaine -- 1 comment

March 10th, 2008

Transfer RNA (tRNA) - a peek into the origin of life

‘Clover structure’ of Transfer RNA 
Transfer RNA (tRNA) is ancient. It is the most direct intermediary between genes and proteins. Like many other RNAs (ribonucleic acids), tRNA aids in translating genes into the chains of amino acids that make up proteins. The fact that tRNA is so central to the task of building proteins probably means […]

By Elaine -- 0 comments