For decades, scientists have known that, despite its name, "junk DNA" in fact plays a critical role: While the coding genes provide blueprints for building proteins, which direct most of the body's functions, some of the ...
Biotechnology
Sep 27, 2023
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240
In 2001 the sequencing of the human genome revealed a surprising fact: over 45% of our genome comes from sequences called transposons, "jumping" genes that can move within the genome, generating new copies of themselves through ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 25, 2023
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44
Neanderthals live on within us.
Archaeology
Sep 25, 2023
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3909
As the days get shorter and chillier in the northern hemisphere, those who choose to work out in the mornings might find it harder to get up and running. A study in PNAS identifies a protein that, when missing, makes exercising ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 18, 2023
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95
The gene editing technique CRISPR/Cas9 has allowed researchers to make precise and impactful changes to an organism's DNA to fix mutations that cause genetic disease. However, the CRISPR/Cas9 method can also result in unintended ...
Biotechnology
Sep 15, 2023
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58
Adenoviruses, known for their low pathogenicity and technological approachability, have become instrumental in many therapeutic applications, including as a vaccination vector platform during the recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 1, 2023
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38
White-tailed deer across Ohio have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, new research has found—and the results also show that viral variants evolve about three times faster in deer than in humans.
Ecology
Aug 28, 2023
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65
In 1991, hikers came across a body that was partially contained in ice high up in the Alpine province of South Tyrol, Italy. Initially thought to be from a recent death, the body was later discovered to be 5,300 years old—from ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 25, 2023
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1
For decades, the Y chromosome—one of the two human sex chromosomes—has been notoriously challenging for the genomics community to sequence due to the complexity of its structure.
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 23, 2023
1
1417
Researchers from the United Kingdom hope that a new, publicly available database they have created will shrink, not grow, over time. That's because it is a compendium of the thousands of understudied proteins encoded by genes ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 8, 2023
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269
The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is stored on 23 chromosome pairs. Twenty-two of these are autosomal chromosome pairs, while the remaining pair is sex-determining. The haploid human genome occupies a total of just over 3 billion DNA base pairs. The Human Genome Project (HGP) produced a reference sequence of the euchromatic human genome, which is used worldwide in biomedical sciences.
The haploid human genome contains an estimated 20,000–25,000 protein-coding genes, far fewer than had been expected before its sequencing. In fact, only about 1.5% of the genome codes for proteins, while the rest consists of RNA genes, regulatory sequences, introns and (controversially) "junk" DNA.
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