The Alternate Allele

Molecular anthropology—you probably haven’t heard of this discipline by name but I guarantee that you already find this particular field fascinating.  Therefore, I’d like to formally introduce to you the field of molecular anthropology which includes such areas of research as; genetically reconstructing man’s ancient migration from Africa to the Americas, resurrecting Neanderthal genomes and identifying ancestral origins through DNA ancestry.

Before the invention of boxed chocolates, Corvettes and bling-bling, all a man had to do for sweet lovin' was provide his special ladies with meat.  Studies of extant hunter-gatherer societies show that literally bringing home the bacon leads to greater reproductive success.  Highly skilled hunters also partake in more extra-marital affairs and in polygamous societies, have more wives. 

Males and females across many animal phyla are genetically separate in that they inherit different sets of sex chromosomes.  As known, human females inherit two copies of X chromosomes while males inherit one X chromosome and one Y chromosome.  The Y chromosome has very few genes but does carry the male determining gene that is expressed later in development.  So do females have more genes expressed perhaps conveying their ability shop more and talk more?  Not exactly.  This genetic imbalance between the sexes is why dosage compensation evolved and different animal phyla have different ways of dealing with this imbalance issue.Organisms originally had all homologous autosomes; there were no

Spanking, flagellation and cockbinding; researchers at the University of Northern Illinois have been very naughty in their attempt to quantify physiological responses to sadomasochistic activities. In their Archives of Sexual Behavior publication, the stress hormone cortisol along with the dominance associated testosterone hormone was measured in 58 sadomasochistic practicing couples before and after kinky sex fun time. Their results, along with a review of S&M literature suggests couples that practice S&M experience reduced levels of stress and feel an increase in relationship closeness.

With all the "bro's" and "ho's" we hear about in the rap world, I think it's safe to say that as a society, we all agree that the rap industry could use a drastic image change.  Furthermore, if that image change could include an educational aspect, then that would definitely be beneficial for our children.  Just imagine, all the cool and funky beats of rap music coupled with the wholesome words we use in science class.  What a concept!  And please, don't be hatin' on me because you didn't think of it first.

Botox and face lifts only give the appearance that you've turned back the clock, and although expensive procedural looks are deceiving, your telomeres don't lie.  As your cells divide, telomeres become shorter, eventually leading to cell death over time. Unfortunately, scientists are far from curing this universal "disease" known as aging.  However, understanding the mechanisms of aging will have a more immediate impact on the development of stem cell therapies, and researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden have discovered that the female egg is capable of reversing this telomere molecular clock.

Weeds, trees or tomatoes; no matter the plant genome of interest, Yves Van de Peer and associate Bioinformaticians at the VIB-Ugent research institute repeatedly observe that the last genome duplication to have occurred in all extant plants happened at the same time—65 million years ago.  This is a rather peculiar date considering it coincides with earth's last mass extinction event.  With this factoid in mind, an inference can be made; duplicated chromosome mutants (polyploids) have a strong advantage during times of environmental hardship.

Prions first made their notorious media debut in the mid-1980’s when British cattle contracted Mad Cow disease. As a result, over 150 people in Europe were infected and died from the human form known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease—a fatal neurological disorder with similar symptoms as Mad Cow.Although prions are infectious agents with a bad reputation, research suggests that prions also play a role in epigenetic regulation.  Recently, a Nature Cell Biology study conducted by molecular biologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago, discovered a new prion in yeast that raises further questions about the biological role of prions in gene regulation.

We’re all aware of the severe genetic and unpleasant physical consequences that result from reproducing with a closely related relative.  Aside from unfortunate aesthetics, inbreeding can also lead to the extinction of small organismal populations.  This decrease of reproductive success is referred to as “inbreeding depression” and mechanisms that cause it are still being debated by biologists. 

The increasing frequency of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is alarming.  Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University believe they may have found a solution to this seemingly losing battle.  Professor Vern L. Schramm and team have developed antibiotic compounds that do not lead to microbial resistance over time.

A preliminary study on the application of thermo-microbiology and its relation to time of death has been released by Professor Isabel Corcobado and colleagues at the University of Granada.  The ultimate goal of this project is to use a microbiological indicator along with existing forensic techniques in order to determine time of death in forensics cases more accurately.

Because of the importance of computational genomics, I am writing this article with utmost urgency in hopes of unifying geneticists and biochemists once and for all.