Genetics & Molecular Biology

What Our Genes Tell Us About Race

Which species is more diverse, humans or chimps? Most of us would be tempted to answer 'humans'. Unless you're a primatologist or you work at a zoo, you would likely have trouble telling one chimp apart from another, not to mention distingui ...

Article - Michael White - Dec 10 2008 - 5:07pm

Copy Number Variation- A New(ish) Approach To Genetic Differences In Chimps And Humans

Researchers have carried out the largest study of differences between human and chimpanzee genomes, identifying regions that have been duplicated or lost during evolution of the two lineages. The study, published in Genome Research, is the first to compare ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 6 2008 - 11:03am

Lots and Lots of Genotyping in Today's Nature Issue

If you're looking for genome news, the Nov. 6 issue of Nature is chock full. A news feature (subscription only) goes after why genome-wide association studies are failing to find genetic variants that explain obviously heritable traits like height or ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Nov 6 2008 - 5:48pm

Pellionisz Google Tech presentation

Those of you who read Genomicon v1 or other blogs that discuss non-coding DNA will, for better or worse, be familiar with regular commenter Andras Pellionisz. Many people have concluded that Dr. Pellionisz is essentially a "crank", though I belie ...

Blog Post - T. Ryan Gregory - Nov 7 2008 - 12:08pm

Speciation in Real-Time

I had lunch today with Jim Anderson, a Professor in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Toronto.  Jim asks questions about how genetic changes over time (evolution) leads to the generation of new species (speciation).  Jim' ...

Blog Post - Justin Gerke - Nov 8 2008 - 10:33am

Crankishness.

As a brief follow up to the post about Dr. Andras Pellionisz's Google seminar, I cannot help but quote from his website: Since a US Government-mandated (and taxpayer paid) 4-year study (ENCODE, led by Dr. Collins) established the scientific fact that ...

Blog Post - T. Ryan Gregory - Nov 10 2008 - 7:12am

Publishing of individual genomes rendered obsolete by publishing of individual genomes.

As Adaptive Complexity writes, last week's issue of Nature  included the publication of  West-African and Han Chinese individual genomes.  The ability to sequence and analyze individual genomes for a reasonable price is a major technological advance o ...

Blog Post - Justin Gerke - Nov 10 2008 - 1:38pm

Discovery- Biosynthesis Essential For Life Would Take 2.3 Billion Years Without Enzymes

A reaction essential for the biosynthesis of hemoglobin and chlorophyll, when catalyzed by the enzyme uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase, causes production in cells to be "increased by a staggering factor, one that's equivalent to the difference betw ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 11 2008 - 1:53am

Adult Stem Cells From Monkey Teeth Stimulate Generation Of Brain Cells

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have discovered dental pulp stem cells can stimulate growth and generation of several types of neural cells. Findings from this study, available in the October issue of the journ ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 11 2008 - 2:53pm

Homosexuality in the animal world, sleep and daylight savings time, finger evolution at Tangled Bank

The latest Tangled Bank is up. Go visit Candid World to find some great, recent biology blogging. ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Nov 13 2008 - 2:12pm