Genetics & Molecular Biology

Some viruses change the behavior of their host, notable examples being the zombie ants and cat-loving rodents. Another example of such a ‘mind-controlling’ virus is the baculovirus, controlling its…

Jumping genes, or more technically, transposons (see figure 1), are sequences of DNA that can move around the genome and find themselves a new place. In eukaryotic DNA, these jumping genes can…

Feel lazy?  Maybe you can blame your genes. Specially-bred mice which had two genes removed, which control the protein AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), an enzyme that is switched on when you…

Bias in science academia is a big topic, but it's selective.  If there are fewer women, it is regarded as a hostile environment but if there are no Republicans that is their choice.   Penn…

As the genome sequencing technologies progress, and the costs per genome sequenced go down, the number of genomes sequenced increases. So far, several hundreds of genomes have been sequenced, with…

Increasing resistance of pathogens to antibiotics is an important issue. The hunt for new antibiotics/antimicrobials is on. For example, the 10X’20 Initiative aims to develop 10 new antimicrobial…

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) already account for one third of all global deaths and raising, with effective heart regeneration therapies yet to be developed despite worldwide research efforts. …

Why did adult human cardiac myocytes, specialized muscle cells in the heart,  lose the ability found in newts and salamanders to proliferate, perhaps explaining why the human heart has little…

Mimicry can often be observed in nature, and several types can be discerned. One of these types is known as Müllerian mimicry (named after the German zoologist Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller), or…

Components of DNA have been found in several meteorites ever since the 1960’s, but the question that continually lingered was whether these components were actually made in space, or rather the…