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
0
240
The Y chromosome is a never-ending source of fascination (particularly to men) because it bears genes that determine maleness and make sperm. It's also small and seriously weird; it carries few genes and is full of junk DNA ...
Evolution
Aug 24, 2023
0
12
A team of researchers from Portugal, Israel, Poland and Spain has found the gene that prompts the parasite Trypanosoma brucei to change from its normal long, slender shape to one that is short and stumpy. In their paper published ...
Bio-Protection Research Centre scientists and collaborators have made a discovery that potentially opens the door to new medicines and biological pesticides.
Biotechnology
Dec 10, 2019
0
102
The human genome is fascinating. Once predicted to contain about a hundred thousand protein-coding genes, it now seems that the number is closer to twenty thousand, and maybe less. And although our genome is made up of about ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 19, 2019
1
120
Though separated by a world of ocean, and unrelated to each other, two fish groups—one in the Arctic, the other in the Antarctic—share a surprising survival strategy: They both have evolved the ability to produce the ...
Biotechnology
Feb 11, 2019
10
210
Scientists at the University of California, Davis have discovered that DNA sequences thought to be essential for gene activity can be expendable. Sequences once called junk sometimes call the shots instead.
Biotechnology
Apr 17, 2017
0
133
Since the 1960s, it's largely been assumed that most of the DNA in the human genome was junk. It didn't encode proteins—the main activity of our genes— so it was assumed to serve no purpose. But Assistant Professor of ...
Biotechnology
Jan 13, 2016
0
9
The Y chromosome, that little chain of genes that determines the sex of humans, is not as tough as you might think. In fact, if we look at the Y chromosome over the course of our evolution we've seen it shrink at an alarming ...
Biotechnology
Nov 14, 2014
3
3
Scientifically speaking, there is no bad DNA, though we like to blame it for unruly hair, klutziness or poor gardening skills. There is, however, junk DNA.
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 1, 2014
0
0
