Category: DNA
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Being human… Not being one…
With only 1 percent difference, the human and chimpanzee protein-coding genomes are remarkably similar. Understanding the biological features that make us human is part of a fascinating and intensely debated line of research. Researchers have developed a new approach to pinpoint adaptive human-specific changes in the way genes are regulated in the brain. (1) But…
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Life. A mess…
Life is built with three major components: RNA and DNA - the genetic code - and proteins, the cells that carry out their instructions. Most likely, the first cells had all three pieces. But first, RNA, DNA or proteins had to form without their partners. One common theory, known as the "RNA World" hypothesis, proposes…
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Recycling… Identity issues…
The secret to a long life? For worms, a cellular recycling protein is key. Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have shown that worms live longer lives if they produce excess levels of a protein, p62, which recognizes toxic cell proteins that are tagged for destruction. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, could…
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Inevitable life. Inevitable death…
To help answer one of the great existential questions -- how did life begin? -- a study combines biological and cosmological models. Professor Tomonori Totani from the Department of Astronomy looked at how life's building blocks could spontaneously form in the universe -- a process known as abiogenesis. As the only life we know of…
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Evolution. Dark DNA.
Scientists long assumed that new genes appear when evolution tinkers with old ones. There are studies suggesting that genes do not always evolve from existing ones, as biologists long supposed. Instead, some are fashioned from desolate stretches of the genome that do not code for any functional molecules. For example in the fish genomes, there…
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