More than a million years ago, large chunks of the human genome were rearranged—a chance event during egg or sperm formation that led to the deletion, duplication, or reversal of sections of DNA. Those structural variants, ...
Evolution
Apr 27, 2023
1
249
The sled dog Balto has been celebrated in books and movies for his role in delivering desperately needed diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska, in 1925. Now, his DNA has enabled scientists to explore the genetics of 1920s ...
Evolution
Apr 27, 2023
0
3816
Viruses like influenza A and Ebola invade human cells in a number of steps. In an interdisciplinary approach, research teams from Heidelberg University and Heidelberg University Hospital investigated the final stages of viral ...
Apr 25, 2023
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16
Most grasshoppers can fly and some, notably locusts, can travel thousands of kilometers.
Ecology
Apr 13, 2023
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2
The completion of the full "telomere-to-telomere" (T2T) human genome last year emphasized that genome sequences that were previously thought to be "complete" were not, in fact, complete at all.
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 5, 2023
0
69
Jumping genes are short sections of DNA that have been incorporated randomly into the human genome over the long course of evolution. Also called transposable elements, these pieces of DNA have been implicated in the development ...
Biotechnology
Apr 4, 2023
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4
The process of cellular differentiation, in which human pluripotent stem cells (hPCSs) progress from primitive to developmentally advanced states, is a fundamental aspect of life. Understanding this process not only sheds ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 30, 2023
0
213
People infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may experience genome structure changes that not only may explain our immunological symptoms after infection, but also potentially link to long COVID, according ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 23, 2023
0
182
A protein complex prevents the repair of genome damage in human cells, in mice and in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a team of researchers at the University of Cologne has discovered. They also successfully inhibited ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 23, 2023
0
196
A major puzzle of biology is that while the human genome contains roughly 20,000 genes, many comparatively primitive organisms—including the universally-studied worm C. elegans—have almost the same number of genes.
Biotechnology
Mar 23, 2023
1
133
