In 2003, the National Institutes of Health published a final draft of the human genome. It was a project that had its roots 30 years earlier with a British biologist. How did the Human Genome Project begin? […]
Two species of butterfly have been named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings. The Saurona triangula and Saurona aurigera were discovered by an international team of scientists. Why name an animal after a fictional character? […]
Sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease face a number of difficult symptoms. Memory loss is just one, alongside the inability to perform familiar tasks. What happens structurally to the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient? […]
It is still not clear how the first organism came into existence. What is, is the fact that it started four billion years ago? Not having to compete for food or survival, it spread around the globe instantly. This also underlines the belief that we all have common ancestors. […]
Miller and Urey tried to duplicate the ‘primordial soup’, thereby attempting to prove that that alone could possibly be how life originated on Earth. […]
Genetic modification in animals is easily accepted. However, when it comes to humans, it raises ethical questions such as should we alter our genetic makeup not only to rectify a defect but also to enhance our capabilities or make ourselves super human? […]
Cancer is an acquired genetic disease that occurs when cells lose the ability to die. Most of the time, regulatory processes orchestrate the death of cells that are defective. In cancer, the cells lose the ability to die. […]
Viral vectors are an effective way to reprogram cells to duplicate correct DNA and make a specific protein, the one that it should have been producing all along. […]
As we learn new ways of altering genes, there seems to be limitless prospects for genetically engineered products. However, the most crucial applications of genetic engineering are the cures of inherited genetic diseases in humans. […]
While we can’t yet clone animals from just any single cell, the techniques may be used to preserve or even increase Earth’s biodiversity, or to preserve libraries of genetic material for organisms now threatened with extinction. […]
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