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Genetics and Health

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 -- 4 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 -- 0 comments

May 23rd, 2008

Indiana Jones - crystal skulls are ‘modern’ fakes

(Photo credit: British Museum, crystal skull) 
Without giving too much of the plot away, the focus of the latest ‘Indiana’ movie is about crystal skulls thought to have been produced by early American civilizations.
But experts say examples held at the British Museum in London and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC are anything but genuine.  Their results show […]

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 18th, 2008

Sun-induced skin cancer - starting point discovered

Different types of skin cancer
(Photo credit: http://melanoma.blogsome.com/category/skin-image-processing)
University of Minnesota researchers looking to answer the question ‘why does ultraviolet light induce skin cancer?’ believe they have found how sun-induced skin cancer starts.  They found the cancer starts in receptor molecules or molecular “hooks” on the outer surface of cells that also pull cannabinoid compounds found in marijuana out […]

By Elaine -- 0 comments

May 18th, 2008

Why apes took to the trees

(Photo credit: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/PhotoGallery/Primates/7.cfm )
Scientists have long wondered why early primates inhabited forest canopies, given that climbing appears to consume more energy than walking. However Duke University researchers studying primates walking on treadmills found that there was no energy consumption difference in small primates.
This suggests that ancestors of humans, apes and monkeys may have taken to the trees […]

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

April 20th, 2008

Titan - Earth’s twin is of interest to new life-hunters

Saturn’s moon Titan - three different views
Courtesy NASA
Titan, one of Saturn’s moons is like a genetic twin to Earth.  It enjoys many of the geological features of the Earth - volcanism, tectonics, erosion, deposition and atmosphere.  The rivers flowing across these plains are formed of a hydrocarbon soup with methane as its main ingredient.
However the one […]

By Elaine -- 0 comments

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