News tagged with dna
New type of extra-chromosomal DNA discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from the University of Virginia and University of North Carolina in the US have discovered a previously unidentified type of small circular DNA molecule occurring outside ...
Mar 09, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (21) |
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Totally rad: Scientists create rewritable digital data storage in DNA
(Phys.org) -- Scientists from Stanford's Department of Bioengineering have devised a method for repeatedly encoding, storing and erasing digital data within the DNA of living cells.
May 21, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (19) |
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Enzyme corrects more than one million faults in DNA replication
Scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (IGMM) at the University of Edinburgh have discovered an enzyme that corrects the most common mistake in mammalian DNA.
May 10, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (16) |
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Plants may have a single ancestor
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international group of scientists has analyzed the DNA of primitive microscopic algae, and their findings suggest that all plants on Earth may have had a single ancestor.
Feb 17, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (16) |
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Evidence suggests Neanderthals took to boats before modern humans
(PhysOrg.com) -- Neanderthals, considered either a sub-species of modern humans or a separate species altogether, lived from approximately 300,000 years ago to somewhere near 24,000 years ago, when they inexplicably ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Mar 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (15) |
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Oxford Nanopore announces groundbreaking GridION and MinION gene sequencers
(PhysOrg.com) -- Oxford University spinoff company, Oxford Nonopore has announced at this year’s Advances in Genome Biology and Technology conference in Florida, two new machines for sequencing genes. ...
Feb 20, 2012 |
5 / 5 (13) |
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New technique reveals unseen information in DNA code
Imagine reading an entire book, but then realizing that your glasses did not allow you to distinguish "g" from "q." What details did you miss? Geneticists faced a similar problem with the recent discovery ...
May 17, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (13) |
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A new view of DNA
While it’s clear that DNA sequencing has been an indispensable tool in understanding any number of biological processes, new research from Harvard suggests that how DNA is packed into cells may be at ...
Mar 12, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (12) |
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Molecular alternatives to DNA, RNA offer new insight into life's origins
Living systems owe their existence to a pair of information-carrying molecules: DNA and RNA. These fundamental chemical forms possess two features essential for life: they display heredity—meaning they can encode and ...
Apr 19, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (12) |
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Tiny reader makes fast, cheap DNA sequencing feasible
Researchers have devised a nanoscale sensor to electronically read the sequence of a single DNA molecule, a technique that is fast and inexpensive and could make DNA sequencing widely available.
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Mar 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (11) |
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European neanderthals were on the verge of extinction even before the arrival of modern humans: study
New findings from an international team of researchers show that most neanderthals in Europe died off around 50,000 years ago.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 26, 2012 |
4 / 5 (13) |
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A new glimpse into ancient human history
Analyzing DNA from four ancient skeletons and comparing it with thousands of genetic samples from living humans, a group of Scandinavian scientists reported that agriculture initially spread through Europe because farmers ...
Apr 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (10) |
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Indonesian 'Eves' colonised Madagascar 1,200 years ago
Several dozen Indonesian women founded the colonisation of Madagascar 1,200 years ago, scientists said on Wednesday in a probe into one of the strangest episodes in the human odyssey.
Mar 21, 2012 |
4.4 / 5 (11) |
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DNA nanorobot triggers targeted therapeutic responses
Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a robotic device made from DNA that could potentially seek out specific cell targets within a complex ...
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Feb 16, 2012 |
5 / 5 (9) |
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Is a new form of life really so alien?
The idea of discovering a new form of life has not only excited astronomers and astrobiologists for decades, but also the wider public. The notion that we are the only example of a successful life form in the galaxy has, ...
May 08, 2012 |
3.6 / 5 (12) |
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DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints or a recipe, or a code, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information.
Chemically, DNA consists of two long polymers of simple units called nucleotides, with backbones made of sugars and phosphate groups joined by ester bonds. These two strands run in opposite directions to each other and are therefore anti-parallel. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of molecules called bases. It is the sequence of these four bases along the backbone that encodes information. This information is read using the genetic code, which specifies the sequence of the amino acids within proteins. The code is read by copying stretches of DNA into the related nucleic acid RNA, in a process called transcription.
Within cells, DNA is organized into X-shaped structures called chromosomes. These chromosomes are duplicated before cells divide, in a process called DNA replication. Eukaryotic organisms (animals, plants, fungi, and protists) store most of their DNA inside the cell nucleus and some of their DNA in the mitochondria (animals and plants) and chloroplasts (plants only). Prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) however, store their DNA in the cell's cytoplasm. Within the chromosomes, chromatin proteins such as histones compact and organize DNA. These compact structures guide the interactions between DNA and other proteins, helping control which parts of the DNA are transcribed.
For more information about DNA, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
