Genetic modification is one of the most controversial topics in all of modern science and with the advancement of synthetic biology over the last decade or so it is sure to become even more of a talking point in the future. Genetic modification is a subject that most people seem to have an opinion on, but I must say that a great deal of those opinions are built upon misconceptions or influenced by the charm of organic propaganda. I cant help but find such misunderstandings quite ironic, for example, the man who strongly opposes the consumption of genetically modified foods, yet requires the injection of insulin produced via genetically modified micro-organisms to keep his diabetes under control, to name just one such example. It seems that ...

These are monkey orchids (Orchis simia). This species can be found in Europe, the Mediterranean, Russia, Asia Minor, and Iran.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute have identified a prime suspect in the mystery of an increased incidence of autoimmune diseases in the past few decades—dietary salt. In the paper, researchers showed that salt can induce and worsen pathogenic immune system responses in mice and that the response is regulated by genes already implicated in a variety of autoimmune diseases.

Down syndrome  is caused by a triple copy of chromosome 21, which leads to a number of cognitive and physical delays. Now researchers from the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have found a protein that restores the some of the cognitive and behavioral disorders found in the disease.

Mice who were deficient in the SNX27 protein exhibited similar characteristics to mice with Down syndrome—namely, they had fewer glutamate receptors, which are important for learning and memory, the team reported in Nature Medicine on Sunday (March 24). The researchers also showed that in mice with Down syndrome, the protein is blocked by a molecule encoded on chromosome 21, and produced in excess in Down syndrome mice as a re ...

This is a remote forest in Western Poland, where 400 pine trees have grown with a curvature in their trunk structure and it turns out that no one really knows exactly what caused it. There are, however, a few theories:

1) The main theory seems to suggest that this is the result of human interference. It is believed that this is a tree farm and the trees were forced to grow horizontally in their youth to make a carpenters life easier. The curved shape can be induced by laying a heavy object over a young tree stem. Phototropism will cause the stem beyond the heavy object to grow toward the sky, while the growing stem beneath and behind the heavy object will develop what is called morphogenetic compression wood - which ultimately makes the curv ...

Gastric brooding frogs went extinct thirty years ago - but today, scientists announced that they have taken a massive step forward in bringing this extinct creature back to life. A team of Australian scientists succeeded in cloning one of these frogs and taking it to the stage of an embryo, and they have now announced that they plan to go all the way and resurrect the gastric brooding frog using cloning technology.

‘’These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic "marks" that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.’’
Time Magazine (2010)

The quote above may well be a few years old now, but its importance is abundantly obvious. Although, three years may have passed since that issue of Time magazine was distributed, a great deal of people have still never heard of epigenetics and those that have know v ...