Genetics & Molecular Biology

Mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti don't have any value ecologically. If Thanos snapped them out of existence tomorrow there is nothing they do that won't immediately be taken up by 3,000 other mosquito species, not to mention 25,000 bee species when it comes to pollination. The only thing they are great at is killing people; by being a leading source of vector-borne dengue disease. Not far behind is Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, which carry malaria. Malaria kills nearly as many people each year as COVID-19 did in 2020 but there is no Warp Speed program to keep poor people in developing nations…

Eucalyptus trees are a pest-resistant evergreen that produce good lumber and oil that wealthy elites in the "wellness" marketplace buy - they are also an invasive species. A new paper shows how scientists used CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out LEAFY, the master gene behind flower formation, so the trees will not reproduce sexually. The greenhouse study involved a hybrid of two species, Eucalyptus grandis and E. urophylla, that is widely planted in the Southern Hemisphere; there are more than 700 species of eucalyptus, most of them native to Australia. "Roughly 7% of the world's forests are…

Just a few short years ago, CRISPR-Cas9 technology took the world of molecular biology by storm because it allowed a cost-effective way to shut off or turn on traits in organisms without any side effects. CRISPR is an acronym of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, a bacterial defense system. The enzyme Cas9 acts like a pair of ‘molecular scissors’ that can cut two strands of DNA and insert of remove something. Then CRISPR repairs it. Now it's gotten upgrade. Instead of one or two genes, a new study knocked out 12 at once. The inheritance of traits in plants is rarely as…

Outside extreme temperature environments, our body temperatures remain around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter how hot or cold the. For most people, the sugar levels in our blood remain fairly constant even after drinking a glass of orange juice, which is essentially a vitamin-fortified sugar-filled soda. Most of us keep the right amount of calcium in our bones and out of the rest of our bodies. Our bodies are good at that kind of self-regulation, known as homeostasis, and scientists have a good handle on the biological reasons why that regulation happens: Certain systems in our bodies have…

A new study has identified nine new regions that influence facial features such as nose, lip, jaw, and brow shape The analysis of genetic data from more than 6,000 volunteers across Latin America was designed to find genes that determine the shape of a person's facial profile but also learned that one of the genes appears to have been inherited from the Denisovans, an extinct group of ancient humans who lived tens of thousands of years ago. The team found that the gene, TBX15, which contributes to lip shape, was linked with genetic data found in the Denisovan people, providing a…

The 10+ Wheat Genomes Project, led by University of Saskatchewan Professor Curtis Pozniak, and the International Barley Pan Genome Sequencing Consortium, led by Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research Professor Nils Stein, have sequenced a suite of genomes of wheat and barley, opening up genetic variations for both. Despite what anti-biology activists claim and Non-GMO Project sells stickers for, there is no GMO wheat. Wheat has been genetically engineered for thousands of years, of course, but that was using legacy trial and error techniques. To feed the global population…

The European Union has recently published a lengthy "Farm to Fork Strategy" which sets out ambitious goals for its agricultural sector. One part of the agenda is to reduce the use of pesticides either by restricting the way they can be used or in many cases by not authorizing their continued use when those particular chemicals come up for periodic review by regulators. Often these restrictions are at odds with the rigorous safety assessments that have been made by many regulatory bodies around the world including the US EPA. Another part of the agenda is to encourage the expansion of Organic…

Artistic rendering of wine grapes - Photo Steve Savage The European Union has recently published a lengthy "Farm to Fork Strategy" which sets out ambitious goals for its agricultural sector. One part of the agenda is to reduce the use of pesticides either by restricting the way they can be used or in many cases by not authorizing their continued use when those particular chemicals come up for periodic review by regulators. Often these restrictions are at odds with the rigorous safety assessments that have been made by many regulatory bodies around the world including the US EPA. Another part…

A lot of environmentalists raise money talking about climate change, but their energy recommendations - mitigation, rationing, high cost - are regressive. Scientists are interested in progress, and nothing has exemplified that like genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which optimize nature in order to speed up organic processes that may take centuries to happen naturally. From insulin to watermelon to any number of other foods, GMOs have made it possible to grow more produce on less land using less water and energy and chemicals per calorie than ever before.Now a team believe GMOs can fix…

Have you been told you have a greater risk of heart disease based on family history? What does that even mean? It was only 40 years ago that epidemiologists still denied there was any genetic component to risk factor diseases like cancer at all. They believed it was all lifestyle and our environment. Even now absolute and relative risk are used so casually and interchangeably that people think everything causes cancer or heart attacks. Tea, bacon, weedkillers, you name it and someone at International Agency for Research on Cancer alleges it will cause cancer without any input from chemists,…