Some things you learn in school turn out not to be true, for example that there are just five senses or three states of matter. Now cutting-edge research has added to the list by proving the mitochondria (the power sources ...
In mammals, females have a limited supply of oocytes. Oocytes have a unique epigenome with approximately half the DNA methylation of sperm, and the most terminally differentiated somatic cells. Until recently, regulators ...
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences were able to produce healthy mice with two mothers that went on to have normal offspring of their own. Mice from two dads were also born but only survived for a couple of days. ...
If asked about clones, most people think of evil sci-fi characters. However, in real life, the word "clone" often has broader, far more positive applications. Just as office workers replicate documents by using copy machines, ...
Charophyceae, relatives of land plants, have genomes that present important information to understand how land plants evolved from their ancestors in the Paleozoic era. Here, we report the draft genome of Chara braunii from ...
The fusion of a sperm cell with an egg cell is the very first step in the process that leads to new individuals in sexually reproducing species. Fundamental as this process may be, scientists are only now beginning to understand ...
Baker's yeast survive and grow after a drastic reorganization, not of their genes, but of the chromosome superstructures that house, protect and control access to their DNA code, a study just published in Nature finds.
Though they occasionally play a role in animal development, transposons, also known as "jumping genetic elements," are in fact DNA sequences that have the potential to move to new positions within the genome. They constitute ...
The nematode C. elegans is a true organizational talent: The tiny life forms, just one millimetre long, live for only two to three weeks, with sexual maturity lasting only four days. They nevertheless manage to generate over ...
Researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have determined how satellite DNA, considered to be "junk DNA," plays a crucial role in holding the genome together.
