New tool helps decipher gene behavior

Scientists have extensively researched the structure and sequence of genetic material and its interactions with proteins in the hope of understanding how our genetics and environment interact with diseases. This research ...

Researchers reveal how cells rewrite their fate

Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association in Berlin have revealed how cells accelerate changes to their identity, ...

Exploring the limits of a new kind of chemo

Chemotherapy sucks. The treatments generally have awful side effects, and it's no secret that the drugs involved are often toxic to the patient as well as their cancer. The idea is that, since cancers grow so quickly, chemotherapy ...

Hibernation slows biological aging in bats

The most common bat in the United States, the big brown bat, boasts an unusually long lifespan of up to 19 years. A new study led by University of Maryland researchers identifies one of the secrets to this bat's exceptional ...

Regulation of the genome affects its 3D structure

All the cells of an organism share the same DNA sequence, but their functions, shapes or even lifespans vary greatly. This happens because each cell "reads" different chapters of the genome, thus producing alternative sets ...

Scientists investigate epigenetic impact across whole genome

All life depends on a genome, which acts as an instruction manual for building all the products essential for development and survival. But knowing which of these individual instructions—or genes—need to be read, and ...

Scientists crack the code to improve stress tolerance in plants

In any eukaryotic organism, the DNA in a cell exists not as a loose strand, but as a highly condensed complex that consists of DNA and other proteins known as histones. Overall, this condensed structure is referred to as ...

Researchers identify how eye loss occurs in blind cavefish

Loss of eye tissue in blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus), which occurs within a few days of their development, happens through epigenetic silencing of eye-related genes, according to a study led by the National Institutes ...

Decoding behavioral variation in ant clones

Genetically identical clonal ants show surprising diversity in their attraction to sweetness, according to new research in the journal Royal Society Open Science. While differences in behavior and preferences among a species ...

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