Genetics & Molecular Biology

Scientists Reveal Secrets Of Homer's Cyclops To Help People With Holoprosencephaly

Homer's Cyclops might be myth, but a disorder that can cause babies to be born with only one eye is very real. Scientists from Cleveland, Ohio, and Paris, France, reached an important milestone in understanding one of the molecular causes of a rare, ...

Article - Administrator - Jan 25 2007 - 1:05am

Biology's Next Revolution

The emerging picture of microbes as gene-swapping collectives demands a revision of such concepts as organism, species and evolution itself. One of the most fundamental patterns of scientific discovery is the revolution in thought that accompanies a new b ...

Article - Administrator - Jan 26 2007 - 8:30pm

Mutant Gene May Have Affected Abe Lincoln

If you bend a knee or an elbow, the nerves in your limbs stretch but do not break. A University of Utah study suggests why: A gene produces a springy protein that keeps nerve cells flexible. When the gene was disabled in tiny nematode worms, their nerve c ...

Article - Administrator - Jan 30 2007 - 3:11am

Dancers Are Genetically Different Than The Rest Of Us

What makes dancers different than the rest of us? Genetic variants, says a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In a study published in PLoS Genetics, Prof. Richard P. Ebstein of the Department of Psychology and his research associates have sh ...

Article - Administrator - Sep 9 2010 - 3:13pm

Human Proteins Evolving Slowly Thanks To Multitasking Genes

Many human proteins are not as good as they might be because the gene sequences that code for them have a double role which slows down the rate at which they evolve, according to new research published in PLoS Biology. By tweaking these dual role regions, ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 6 2007 - 8:29pm

Horse Genome Assembled: Get Your Thoroughbred DNA Now

The first draft of the horse genome sequence has been deposited in public databases and is freely available for use by biomedical and veterinary researchers around the globe, leaders of the international Horse Genome Sequencing Project announced today. Ph ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 8 2007 - 8:23pm

Genes Involved In Coffee Quality Identified

Sucrose plays a vital role in coffee organoleptic quality. A team from CIRAD and the Agricultural Institute of Paraná in Brazil has recently identified the genes responsible for sucrose accumulation in coffee beans. This is a new step along the way to prod ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 8 2007 - 8:29pm

Cleft Palate In Fetal Mice Prevented By Treating With Small Molecule

Mice engineered to have cleft palates can be rescued in utero by injecting the mothers with a small molecule to correct the defect, say scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. In addition to sh ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 12 2007 - 1:29pm

Scientists Clone Mice From Adult Skin Stem Cells

For cells that hold so much promise, stem cells' potential has so far gone largely untapped. But new research from Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists now shows that adult stem cells taken from skin can be used to cl ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 12 2007 - 7:02pm

Google Your Brain

The Allen Brain Atlas, a genome-wide map of the mouse brain on the Internet, has been hailed as “Google of the brain.” The atlas now has a companion or the brain’s working molecules, a sort of pop-up book of the proteins, or proteome map, that those genes ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 14 2007 - 7:08pm