Scientists engineer synthetic DNA to study 'architect' genes

Researchers at New York University have created artificial Hox genes—which plan and direct where cells go to develop tissues or organs—using new synthetic DNA technology and genomic engineering in stem cells.

Origin of a complex life form revealed

Researchers from McGill University have revealed the steps by which two very distinct organisms—bacteria and carpenter ants—have come to depend on one another for survival to become a single complex life form. The study, ...

How the bumble bee got its stripes

Researchers have discovered a gene that drives color differences within a species of bumble bees. This discovery helps to explain the highly diverse color patterns among bumble bee species as well as how mimicry—individuals ...

New study probes the ancient past of a body plan code

Researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have opened a window on another piece of evolutionary biology. They have found that Hox genes, which are key regulators of the way the bodies of bilaterally symmetrical ...

Which came first the head or the brain?

(Phys.org) —A fundamental question in the evolution of animal body plans, is where did the head come from? In animals with a clear axis of right-left symmetry, the bilaterians, the head is where the brain is, at the anterior ...

This sea worm's posterior swims away, and now scientists know how

A research team, led by Professor Toru Miura from the University of Tokyo, shows how the expression of developmental genes in the Japanese green syllid worms, Megasyllis nipponica, helps form their swimming reproductive unit ...

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