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The truth about redheads
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Did you know red-heads have an evolutionary advantage in cloudy regions of the world, and they have a lower tolerance for pain than the rest of us?
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94136 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
A seriously weird mutation - poor frog
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Nature never ceases to amaze. Found in Canada, this toad had a mutation that caused its eyes to grow in the roof of its mouth, which means it had to open its mouth to see.
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35228 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
If you thought being left-handed was odd, read this
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A rare condition, known as situs inversus, is when a person has their major organs mirrored from their normal positions. So, for example, the heart would be on the right side of the body, or the liver and gall bladder are on the left side. It is a congenital condition (meaning it's tied to your genetics) that affects 1 in 20,000 people - including Spanish-born singer Enrique Iglesias. Situs inversus is generally an autosomal recessive genetic condition, although it can be X-linked or found in identical "mirror image" twins. ...
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25448 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Bringing the wholly mammoth back to life
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Before you get any ideas that we're cloning wholly mammoths back into the 21st century, it's not that. An American geneticist has extracted DNA from the frozen remains of a long-dead mammoth found on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean (shown above), created a synthetic replica of it, and implanted it into elephant cells that have been isolated in a petri dish, using a new technique of DNA splicing that allows for unprecedented accuracy. The technique used to join synthetic mammoth DNA fragments with the genetic code of an elephant is called CRISPR/Cas9, and while it’s been recently used to create transgenic organisms, this is the first time it’s been used on the DNA of an extinct organism. Way to go! Source: http://www.sciencealert.com/mammot ...
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23656 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Why do archaeologists and geneticists reach different conclusions?
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An archaeologists is a scientist who studies human history by discovering and examining human remains and artifacts. The most common image of an archaeologists is someone on their hand and knees digging through dirt, carefully using a brush to dust off an artifact from the distant past. A geneticist, on the other hand, is someone who specializes in the science of genetics. This field of biology deals with the pattern of inheritance, molecular structure and function of genes, and gene behavior in context of a cell or organism. Both professionals are highly skilled, and use the same basic principles of science to test hypotheses, gather data, and make conclusions. However, why do archaeologists and geneticists sometimes reach different conclu ...
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16261 |
bio_man |
2 years ago |
Allergic to vibrations?
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Vibratory urticarial is a ultra rare genetic condition that cause people to break out in hives if their skin is vigorously vibrated or rubbed. In fact, even drying yourself with a towel can cause hives, make your face flush, give you headaches, or produce the sensation of a metallic taste. According to a new study published this week, researchers found a mutation in a gene called ADGRE2 that codes for a receptor protein found on the surface of mast cells - immune cells in the skin that dump out inflammatory molecules such as histamines that increase blood flow to an area and can cause hives. The researchers observed that shaking mast cells in a dish breaks apart two subunits of this receptor protein, which prompts histamine release. In p ...
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16222 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
How one perceives beauty is merely superficial
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Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but what’s influencing our eye? Scientists reveal that it’s not genetics but life experiences that lead us to find one face more attractive than another. This finding furthers the on-going debate of nature versus nurture. Here's how the study went down: Researchers asked 547 pairs of identical twins and 214 pairs of same-gender fraternal twins to view 200 faces and rate them on a scale of one to seven, with one being the least attractive and seven the most attractive. A group of 660 non-twins then completed the same survey. If genes were more involved in facial preference, identical twins would have had similar ratings; if the influence of a familial environment carried more weight, fraternal twins w ...
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15631 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Why do men with dark hair sometimes possess a reddish beard?
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It has to do with a single gene! More than a decade ago, researchers discovered that one gene (MC1R) on chromosome 16 plays an important role in giving people red hair. MC1R task is to make the protein melanocortin 1. This protein plays an important role in converting red pigment into black pigment. If you end up with only one mutated MC1R gene, red hair can appear in unwanted places, like your beard. When someone inherits two mutated versions of the MC1R-gene (one from each parent), less red pigment is converted into black pigment. ...
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14850 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
This synthetic organism survives with less than 500 genes
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This week in Science, researchers led by genome sequencing pioneer Craig Venter report engineering a bacterium to have the smallest genome - and the fewest genes - of any freely living organism. Known as Syn 3.0, the new organism has a genome whittled down to the bare essentials needed to survive and reproduce, just 473 genes. However, the function of 149 of Syn 3.0's 473 genes remain unknown. As Syn 3.0's name suggests, it’s not the first synthetic life made by Venter. In 2010, Venter's team reported that they had synthesized the sole chromosome of Mycoplasma mycoides - a bacterium with a relatively small genome - and transplanted it into a separate mycoplasma called M. capricolum, from which they had previously extracted the DNA. After s ...
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10768 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Elephants possess tumour fighting genes that prevent cancer
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Having more cells usually puts one at a higher risk for cancer - but not for the elephant. Despite packing 100 times as many cells as humans, this towering animal can keep cancer at bay thanks to extra copies of a tumor-fighting gene. Researchers found that Asian elephants harbor 30 to 40 copies of the gene that encodes the protein p53, one of the most important mechanisms for preventing cancer and maintaining cell division. If cells have DNA damage that could spawn tumors, p53 prevents them from dividing until they make repairs or spurs them to commit suicide. In contrast, humans sport only two copies of the gene for p53, and so does elephants’ closest living relative, the rock hyrax. The extra copies probably accumulated millions of yea ...
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9941 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
A cat the size of a mouse
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Mr. Peebles from Pekin, Illinois, USA was claimed as the world's smallest cat. Mr. Peebles is two years old cat weighing just three pounds and measuring 6.1 inches in height. This anomaly is caused by a genetic disorder.
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9152 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
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6575 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
This plant has the largest genome of all living organisms
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When it comes to genome size, a rare Japanese flower, called Paris japonica, is the current heavyweight champ, with 50 times more DNA than humans. It is a slow growing perennial that sports a rare, showy white star-like flower above a single whorl of about eight stem leaves. The exceptionally large genome of P. japonica is due to the fact that it's an octoploid, meaning it has four sets of chromosomes - on the contrary, humans are diploid (two sets). Its 40 chromosomes consist of 150 billion base pairs of DNA per cell, therefore making its genome the largest known genome of any living organism. In fact, the DNA from a single cell could theoretically stretch out to be longer than 300 feet (91 m). ...
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6459 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
See the world's tallest man
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Kösen's height was caused by the production of too much growth hormone due to a tumour in his pituitary gland. The tumour was eventually removed in 2010 through revolutionary gamma-knife surgery. Amge has a form of dwarfism, caused by a mutation in a bone growth gene.
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5914 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Is handedness determined by genetics?
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Approximately 10% of the world population is left-handed. What causes this anomaly?While there are several theories that try to explain this trait -- such as the positioning of the baby during the final trimester, hormone exposure during pregnancy, or epigenetic factors -- the most consistent and hardwired explanation boils down to plain old genetics. In other words, the reason you're right-handed or left-handed is because it's written in your DNA. Research suggests that handedness displays a complex inheritance pattern. For example, if both parents of a child are left-handed, there is a 26% chance of that child being left-handed. A large study of twins from 25,732 families also indicated that the heritability of handedness is roughly 24%. T ...
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5500 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
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