Genetics

According to an international team of scientists who have sequenced the genome of a 5,310-year-old maize cob from the Tehuacan Valley, the maize (Zea mays) grown in central Mexico more than five millennia ago was genetically more similar to modern maize than to its wild counterpart. A 5,310-year-old maize cob …

Scientists from the University of Illinois have boosted crop yields in a revolutionary procedure that genetically enhances photosynthesis. The UN claims that in 2050, humanity will need to produce 70% more food than we do today. The researchers claim this new discovery will help bridge the gap towards feeding a …

An international team of researchers led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has developed a novel technique for gene silencing in human T-lymphocytes (T-cells), a type of immune cells. Left: an illustration of GapmeR design, cellular internalization leading to specific gene silencing. Right: super-resolution microscopy of GapmeR co-localization with SNX5 protein …

New research suggests that smallpox may not be an ancient disease but a much more modern killer that went on to become the first human disease eradicated by vaccination. The findings appear today in the journal Current Biology. This transmission electron micrograph depicts a number of variola virions. Image credit: …

There’s a common misconception that genes determine our physiologic destiny. And it’s well and good to go around exploding such untruths — except when they turn out to be true. For a minority of people, those with inherited Mendelian disorders like cystic fibrosis, genes do in fact seem to determine …

On April 25, 1953, Nature first published the research spearheaded by James Watson and Francis Crick on the molecular structure of DNA. 63 years later, DNA analysis and manipulation play major roles in nearly every aspect of our lives. From genetically-tailored weight loss to precision pest control to data-driven genealogy, …

Synaptic pruning is a little like sleep. We know both processes are important to healthy brain function, but we don’t know exactly how they happen, nor how to reliably treat problems in the system. Disruptions in the delicate process of synaptic pruning are associated with disorders like schizophrenia and autism, …

In biology, more than any other science, there is quite a lot of restraint. Whether it’s a banned, deadly super-virus or a taboo experiment with a human embryo, there are countless avenues of biology that can be pursued, but which shouldn’t be. Just where the line lies, separating the “weird-but-necessary” …

Gene therapy is part of an increasingly large collection of research fields: those with a huge, useless backlog of innovations. Gene therapy researchers have spent decades developing amazing, world-changing therapies with absolutely no ability to use those therapies outside of a test tube, or at best a cloned rodent. Now, …

This past week saw an intriguing confluence of multiple disciplines, in the form a new artificial stingray model its creators call a “living robot,” and an unconventional means of studying the human heart. Driven by rat cells and modeled after a fish, it might seem like (and be) an odd …