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Edited RNA + invasive DNA add individuality

By Guest PostNovember 18, 2013Scienceadar, adar hamstrug flies, aicardi goutieres syndrome, brown university, chromatin, edited rna, enzyme, genetic oddity, genome, hoppel transposons, humans, invasive dna, james jepson, rachel whitaker, red color gene, rna in humans, transposons, yiannis savva, yoah jen chang

A study in Nature Communications finds that an enzyme that edits RNA may loosen the genome’s control over invasive snippets of DNA that affect how genes are expressed. In fruit flies, that newly understood mechanism appears to contribute to differences among individuals such as eye color and life span.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The story of why we are all so different goes well beyond the endless mixing and matching of DNA through breeding. A new study in the journal Nature Communications, for instance, reports a new molecular mechanism of individual variation found in fruit flies that uses components operating in a wide variety of species, including humans. (more…)

Could a Milky Way Supernova Be Visible from Earth in Next 50 Years?

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2013Scienceamerican neutrino expert, astronomer, christopher kochanek, computer model, detectors for neutrinos, egads, element gadolinium, galactic supernova, Galaxy, gravitational waves, infrared radiation, Japan, john beacom, mark vagins, milky way supernova, nuclear reactors, ohio state university, ohioans, scott adams, super k, super kamiokande, ultra pure water, visible from earth

Advances in cameras, new strategies for detection make it possible

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Astronomers at The Ohio State University have calculated the odds that, sometime during the next 50 years, a supernova occurring in our home galaxy will be visible from Earth.

The good news: they’ve calculated the odds to be nearly 100 percent that such a supernova would be visible to telescopes in the form of infrared radiation. (more…)

Less Toxic Metabolites, More Chemical Product

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2013Scienceamorphadiene, antimalarial drug artemisinin, berkeley lab, biomass, chemical product, e coli, energy crops, environmental condition, escherichia coli, fuzhong zhang, jay keasling, jbei, lignin, metabolite regulatory system, microbial growth, mrna stability, nature biotechnology, renewable fuels, ribosome binding, robert dahl, toxic metabolites

The first dynamic regulatory system that prevents the build-up of toxic metabolites in engineered microbes has been reported by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). The JBEI researchers used their system to double the production in Escherichia coli (E. coli) of amorphadiene, a precursor to the premier antimalarial drug artemisinin.

Using genome-wide transcriptional analysis, the JBEI researchers identified native regions of DNA – called “promoters” – in E. coli that respond to toxic metabolites by promoting the expression of protective genes. They then developed a system based on these promoters for regulating artificial metabolic pathways engineered into the E.coli to enable the bacterium to produce amorphadiene. (more…)

Dogs likely originated in Europe more than 18,000 years ago, UCLA biologists report

By Guest PostNovember 16, 2013Nature, Scienceancient dog fossil, ancient hunter, carnivore, co evolutionary process, coyotes, daniel greenfield, dog, dog like animals, dogs from europe, domestic dogs, druid peak, east asia, Europe, european hunter, european wolves, evolutionary biology, finland, fossil, genetic analysis, genetic data, illinois, klaus koepfli, koster archaeological site, late pleistocene, middle east, middle east origin, migration, mitochondrial dna, modern dogs, North America, olaf thalmann, old world, origin, proximity to humans, robert wayne, species, two wolves, ucla biologist, university of turku, western russia, wolf like animals, yellowstone national park

Wolves likely were domesticated by European hunter–gatherers more than 18,000 years ago and gradually evolved into dogs that became household pets, UCLA life scientists report.

“We found that instead of recent wolves being closest to domestic dogs, ancient European wolves were directly related to them,” said Robert Wayne, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in UCLA’s College of Letters and Science and senior author of the research. “This brings the genetic record into agreement with the archaeological record. Europe is where the oldest dogs are found.” (more…)

Learning from the land

By Guest PostNovember 15, 2013Sciencefarmers markets, farming experience, fresh organic food, organic farm, summer in minnesota, urban agriculture

It’s late May in the freshly tilled soil of a three-plus-acre organic farm on the U of M St. Paul campus. Horticulture student Lindsay Mayer kneels, wearing purple gloves and an orange bandanna to keep the sweat out of her eyes as she plants shallot after shallot. (more…)

Martian moon samples will have bits of Mars

By Guest PostNovember 13, 2013Scienceamounts of water, brown university geologists, james head, ken ramsley, large projectile impacts, mars, martian bits, martian material, martian moon phobos, martian moon samples, orbit, phobos, planetary geosciences group, regolith, russian mission, russian space agency, spacecraft

A Russian mission to the Martian moon Phobos, launching in 2020, would return samples from Phobos that contain bits and pieces of Mars itself. A new study calculates how much Martian material is on the surface of Phobos and how deep it is likely to go.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A planned mission to return a sample from the Martian moon Phobos will likely be a twofer, according to a study by Brown University geologists. (more…)

Stress makes snails forgetful

By Guest PostNovember 13, 2013Nature, Scienceabsorb oxygen, alberta innovates, bad for memory, breathe underwater, lymnaea stagnalis, pond snail, sarah dalesma, skin, snail study, stress, university of calgary, university of exeter

Snail study reveals that stress is bad for memory.

New research on pond snails has revealed that high levels of stress can block memory processes. Researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Calgary trained snails and found that when they were exposed to multiple stressful events they were unable remember what they had learned.

Previous research has shown that stress also affects human ability to remember. This study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that experiencing multiple stressful events simultaneously has a cumulative detrimental effect on memory. (more…)

‘Freakish’ asteroid discovered, resembles rotating lawn sprinkler

By Guest PostNovember 12, 2013Scienceasteroid belt, asteroid rotation rate, astrophysical journal letters, comet like tails, common phenomenon, david jewitt, dust radiating, episodic eruptions, freakish asteroid, Germany, harold weaver, hubble, jessica agarwal, jupiter, lindau, mars, massive, max mutchler, max planck institute, nucleus, pan starrs, rotational breakup, solar system research, stephen larson, ucla

Astronomers have discovered a “weird and freakish object” resembling a rotating lawn sprinkler in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The find, reported online in the Nov. 7 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, has left them scratching their heads and searching for an explanation for the strange asteroid’s out-of-this-world appearance.

Normal asteroids appear simply as tiny points of light. This bizarre asteroid has six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. (more…)

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