Biology Fact of the Day

[Tank]

Neanderthal Genome Yields Insights Into Human Evolution and Evidence of Interbreeding With Modern Humans

ScienceDaily (May 6, 2010) " After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans.

[pinkocommie]

Neanderthal Genome Yields Insights Into Human Evolution and Evidence of Interbreeding With Modern Humans

ScienceDaily (May 6, 2010) â€" After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans.

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I WAS GOING TO POST THIS!!!  Dammit.  Pretty damn cool though.  

[Tank]

Neanderthal Genome Yields Insights Into Human Evolution and Evidence of Interbreeding With Modern Humans

ScienceDaily (May 6, 2010) â€" After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans.

[/url]

I WAS GOING TO POST THIS!!!  Dammit.  Pretty damn cool though.  

[Tank]

What Is a Grass? Chloroplast DNA Reveals That a Grass May Not Be a Grass

ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2010) â€" A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but it would no longer be a rose. If a grass is booted out of the grass family, where does it go?

Leah Morris and Dr. Melvin Duvall from Northern Illinois University recently investigated the evolution of grasses, one of the most economic and ecologically important plant families, by sequencing the chloroplast DNA of an early diverging grass genus, Anomochloa, and comparing it to the chloroplasts of other grasses. Their results are published in the April issue of the American Journal of Botany. There is only one known species of Anomochloa, and it is native to the coastal forests of Brazil in an increasingly fragmented habitat...

[Tank]

Lensless Imaging of Whole Biological Cells With Soft X-Rays

ScienceDaily (May 8, 2010) â€" A team of scientists working at beamline 9.0.1 of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has used x-ray diffraction microscopy to make images of whole yeast cells, achieving the highest resolution -- 11 to 13 nanometers (billionths of a meter) -- ever obtained with this method for biological specimens. Their success indicates that full 3-D tomography of whole cells at equivalent resolution should soon be possible.

[karadan]

Neanderthal Genome Yields Insights Into Human Evolution and Evidence of Interbreeding With Modern Humans

ScienceDaily (May 6, 2010) â€" After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans.

[/url]

I misread that as 'neanderthal gnome'...  

The Elephant is the only mammal with four forward-facing knees.

[Tank]

Hops Helps Reduce Ammonia Produced by Cattle

ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2010) â€" An Agricultural Research Service (ARS ) scientist may have found a way to cut the amount of ammonia produced by cattle. To do it, he's using a key ingredient of the brewer's art: hops.

 

[Tank]

Kiss of Death: Research Targets Lethal Chagas' Disease Spread by Insect That Bites Lips

ScienceDaily (May 2, 2010) â€" It makes your skin crawl -- a bug that crawls onto your lips while you sleep, drawn by the exhaled carbon dioxide, numbs your skin, bites, then gorges on your blood. And if that's not insult enough, it promptly defecates on the wound-and passes on a potentially deadly disease.

[elliebean]

[Tank]

Small Dogs Originated in the Middle East, Genetic Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2010) â€" A genetic study has found that small domestic dogs probably originated in the Middle East more than 12,000 years ago. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology traced the evolutionary history of the IGF1 gene, finding that the version of the gene that is a major determinant of small size probably originated as a result of the domestication of the Middle Eastern gray wolf.

[elliebean]

Scientists Create First Synthetic Cell, Opening New Era in Biology

* U.S. NEWS    * MAY 20, 2010, 2:28 P.M. ET
Heralding a new era in biology, scientists for the first time have created a synthetic cell, completely controlled by man-made genetic instructions, which can survive and reproduce itself, researchers at the private J. Craig Venter Institute announced Thursday.

"We call it the first synthetic cell," said genomics pioneer Craig Venter, who oversaw the project. "These are very much real cells."

Created at a cost of $30 million, this experimental one-cell organism opens the way to the manipulation of life on a previously unattainable scale, several researchers and ethics experts said. Scientists have been altering DNA piecemeal for a generation, producing a menagerie of genetically engineered plants and animals, but the ability to craft an entire organism offers a new power over life, they said.

[JillSwift]

Scientists Create First Synthetic Cell, Opening New Era in Biology

Seriously and totally cool!

[Cecilie]

Kiss of Death: Research Targets Lethal Chagas' Disease Spread by Insect That Bites Lips

ScienceDaily (May 2, 2010) â€" It makes your skin crawl -- a bug that crawls onto your lips while you sleep, drawn by the exhaled carbon dioxide, numbs your skin, bites, then gorges on your blood. And if that's not insult enough, it promptly defecates on the wound-and passes on a potentially deadly disease.

:eek:

[Tank]

Kiss of Death: Research Targets Lethal Chagas' Disease Spread by Insect That Bites Lips

ScienceDaily (May 2, 2010) â€" It makes your skin crawl -- a bug that crawls onto your lips while you sleep, drawn by the exhaled carbon dioxide, numbs your skin, bites, then gorges on your blood. And if that's not insult enough, it promptly defecates on the wound-and passes on a potentially deadly disease.

:eek:

Just sleep with your mouth shut  

[Cecilie]

Just sleep with your mouth shut  :secret: