Genetics & Molecular Biology

We've all seen Jurassic Park. An ancient petrified piece of tree sap (or amber) is found, containing a mosquito that has been sucking dinosaur blood before its demise. A little bit of this blood is…

Protein folding is where the coiled strings of amino acids that make up proteins in all living things fold into more complex three-dimensional structures. Incorrectly folded proteins in humans result…

Figuring out the structure of DNA, and the ongoing research into its workings, have provided scientists with a lot of new knowledge. One of the, perhaps unexpected, new areas of research that have…

Human embryonic stem cell research is limited in the US and Europe but creative researchers have made significant advances  using the existing hESC lines allowed under US federal guidelines…

In a complex system you never know what obscure change can modify things that wouldn't seem to be related.  A new study shows that variation of the scavenger receptor class B type 1 gene (SCARB1…

In the 'we need to make sure all people can abdicate any responsibility for their actions' department, a new study makes obesity exculpatory by determining that a mother's nutrition during pregnancy…

Mitochondria are better known as the power factories of the cell but in fact they are much more interesting than that. Contrary to the old image in textbooks of round static structures, mitochondria…

People may object to my calling for Ph.D. programs in Theoretical Phys Ed and Quantum Paleontology, but humor is not far off the mark.  Evolutionary psychology, for example, is practically self-…

Bananas in their natural state have up to a hundred seeds but all commercial varieties that you see in stores are seedless.   Making seedless varieties made bananas wildly popular, which was…

Among environmental activists and their supporters, the use of genetic modification is a bad thing.   Obviously, tomatoes would be the size of our thumbs if our ancestors did not genetically…