The human Y chromosome (the male chromosome) is sometimes referred to as a “hall of mirrors” as the genes essential for sperm production are encoded in long stretches of mirror-image sequence. That unique pattern provides the lone Y chromosome with pairs of genes within its own structure that can back each other up, helping to […]
In a bold rewrite of the recipe for life, scientists have designed a new type of DNA with 12 chemical letters instead of the usual four. This artificial genetic system is already helping to usher in the era of personalized medicine for millions of patients with HIV, hepatitis and other diseases and may one day […]
Biological dogma has long held that as a molecule of DNA is stretched, its double helix starts to unwind; but Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have shown that this is most definitely not the case. The experiment, reported in Nature, used microscopic beads and magnetic tweezers to observe that when a DNA molecule is stretched, […]
Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have been conducting a comprehensive structural analysis of our galaxy and found intriguing new evidence that the Milky Way is quite different from what we believe to be an ordinary spiral galaxy. The study, appearing inAstrophysical Journal Letters, reveals details of a long central bar feature that distinguishes the […]
University at Buffalo scientists say that a gene therapy method that doesn’t rely on potentially toxic viruses as vectors may be growing closer as the result of in vitro research results reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article describes the successful uptake of a fluorescent gene by cells using novel […]
Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that roughly 80 percent of our cognitive power may be cranking away on tasks completely unknown to us. Curiously, this clandestine activity does not exist in the youngest brains, leading scientists to speculate that the mysterious goings-on that absorb the majority of our grey-matter are dedicated to […]
