31 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Genetic Language is Abstract and Flexible
The awesome power that genetic engineering will
one day place in our hands was foreshadowed recently
by some experimenters at the University of Basel in
Switzerland. Walter Gehring and his students were
studying the effects of the eyeless gene in fruit flies. The
gene is called eyeless because its absence causes flies to
grow without eyes. The gene actually causes eyes to grow. Gehring and the students inserted the gene into
various tissues of embryonic flies, and the embryos
grew into flies ... 1 
notes
notes24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
An Early Experiment Hinting at DNA
Anomaly (2) was observed by Fred Griffith, decades before DNA and the genetic code. He found that if you inject a heat-treated, dead, virulent species of bacteria (pneumococcus S) into a rat previously infected with a nonvirulent species (pneumococcus R), then species R became transformed into species S, thereby killing the rat. About fifteen years later, Oswald Avery found that you can even do this in a test tube; dead S would transform live R into live S if the two were simply incubated tog... 1 notes
notesV. S. Ramachandran on a fascinating experiment involving combining dead bacteria with live to produce new bacteria.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
One Half of DNA is Parasitic
Parasites are not only incredibly diverse; they are also incredibly successful. There are parasitic stretches of DNA in your own genes, some of which are called retrotransposons. Many of the parasitic stretches were originally viruses that entered our DNA. Most of them don't do us any harm. They just copy and insert themselves in other parts of our DNA, basically replicating themselves. Sometimes they hop into other species and replicate themselves in a new host. According to one estimate, ro... 1 notes
notesThis doesn't sound right to me, but the claim is that Viruses have inserted so much DNA into our genomes.
30 MAY 2012 by RadioGuy
Humans share 98.5% of our genes with chimpanzees
The genome is not a blueprint for constructing a body; it is a recipe for baking a body.
As the hox story illustrates, DNA promoters express themselves in the fourth dimension; their timing is all. A chimp has a different head from a human being not because it has a different blueprint for the head, but because it grows the jaws for longer and the cranium for less long than a human being. The difference is all timing.
The startling new truth that has emerged from the human genome - that...Folksonomies: genetics
Folksonomies: genetics
1 notes
notesEven the difference between human and mouse blueprints are minor. Our variation comes from the schedules that manage the expression of genes, and these are controlled by the chemicals and enzymes in our environments.
26 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Interest in Genetics of "Lesser" Animals Betrays our Conn...
Genetics has enticed a great many explorers during the past two decades. They have labored with fruit-flies and guinea-pigs, with sweet peas and corn, with thousands of animals and plants in fact, and they have made heredity no longer a mystery but an exact science to be ranked close behind physics and chemistry in definiteness of conception. One is inclined to believe, however, that the unique magnetic attraction of genetics lies in the vision of potential good which it holds for mankind rat... 1 notes
notesIf we were not related to them, then there would be little scientific interest in exploring them.
16 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Genes Associated with Brain Volume
Identifying genetic variants influencing human brain structures may reveal new biological mechanisms underlying cognition and neuropsychiatric illness. The volume of the hippocampus is a biomarker of incipient Alzheimer's disease1, 2and is reduced in schizophrenia3, major depression4 and mesial temporal lobe epilepsy5. Whereas many brain imaging phenotypes are highly heritable6, 7, identifying and replicating genetic influences has been difficult, as small effects and the high costs of mag...
1 SNPs: rs7294919(T;T), rs10784502(C;T), and rs10494373(A;A) tied to brain volume.
23 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Nucleic Acids Unify Biology
We are now witnessing, after the slow fermentation of fifty years, a concentration of technical power aimed at the essential determinants of heredity, development and disease. This concentration is made possible by the common function of nucleic acids as the molecular midwife of all reproductive particles. Indeed it is the nucleic acids which, in spite of their chemical obscurity, are giving to biology a unity which has so far been lacking, a chemical unity. 1 notes
notesBy providing a molecular starting point for everything else.
17 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Sequence Hypothesis and The Central Dogma
My own thinking (and that of many of my colleagues) is based on two general principles, which I shall call the Sequence Hypothesis and the Central Dogma. The direct evidence for both of them is negligible, but I have found them to be of great help in getting to grips with these very complex problems. I present them here in the hope that others can make similar use of them. Their speculative nature is emphasized by their names. It is an instructive exercise to attempt to build a useful theory ... 1 notes
notesCrick describes two guiding principles of understanding how DNA produces proteins. The second is interesting for the use of the term 'information.'
01 FEB 2012 by ideonexus
The Enormity of Finding a Disease-Causing Gene
[Locating, from scratch, the gene related to a disease is like] trying to find a burned-out light bulb in a house located somewhere between the East and West coasts without knowing the state, much less the town or street the house is on. 1 notes
notesQuoting Francis S. Collins.
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Genetics Grew Up an Orphan
In a sense, genetics grew up as an orphan. In the beginning botanists and zoologists were often indifferent and sometimes hostile toward it. 'Genetics deals only with superficial characters', it was often said. Biochemists likewise paid it little heed in its early days. They, especially medical biochemists, knew of Garrod's inborn errors of metabolism and no doubt appreciated them in the biochemical sense and as diseases; but the biological world was inadequately prepared to appreciate fully ... 1 notes
notesGeorge Beadle in 'Genes and chemical reactions In Neurospora' describes out botanists, zoologists, and biochemists were uninterested in genetics as it dealt simply with the transmission of characteristics between individuals while there were greater things to study in the field.
