Category: Life
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Giant viruses. Evolution. New genes.
Three new members have been added to the Pandoravirus family. Researchers offer an explanation to their puzzling giant genomes with many orphan genes: pandoviruses appear to be factories for new genes - and therefore new functions. From freaks of nature to evolutionary innovators, giant viruses continue to shake branches on the tree of life! (1)…
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Quantum entanglement in living organisms? The complexity of simple definitions.
Researchers managed to generate and study quantum entanglement in living organisms. In the study, scientists used green fluorescent proteins, which are responsible for bioluminescence and commonly used in biomedical research. The research team attempted to entangle the photons generated from the fluorescing molecules within the algae's barrel-shaped protein structure by exposing them to spontaneous four-wave…
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Health. Disease. Blurry lines…
Our genome is made up of 20,000 genes, all of which may cause disease. At present, 4,141 genes have been identified as being responsible for genetic abnormalities, leaving around 16,000 genes with unknown implication in disease. Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, -- working in collaboration with scientists from Pakistan and the USA…
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Calculating probabilities.
Our whole life we must make decisions and weigh up probabilities of different events. By learning to estimate which event is more likely to happen, we become better at analyzing risks and benefits to guide our actions. But when do we start to gain a sense of stochasticity? Are babies even able to determine likelihood?…
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Resurrection? Difficult to believe? But it happens all the time. And science is the first to acknowledge it!
Life on Earth originated in an intimate partnership between the nucleic acids (genetic instructions for all organisms) and small proteins called peptides, according to two new papers from biochemists and biologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Auckland. Their "peptide-RNA" hypothesis contradicts the widely-held "RNA-world" hypothesis, which states…
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