By Rhishja Larson •
August 6, 2009
Comparing DNA from seized ivory to an elephant DNA database is revealing new information on how poaching syndicates and illegal dealers are operating.
The development of a DNA forensics technique may prove to be a valuable weapon in the bloody war against elephant poaching.
According to BBC News, Professor Sam Wasser of the Center or Conservation Biology at the University of Washington is fighting back against these criminals using DNA collected from elephant dung and ivory to expose poaching hotspots.
After two weeks of a strict algae-only diet, a one-inch, green sea slug species (Elysia chlorotica) was somehow able to incorporate the plants chloroplasts (the cell-like organelles that trap solar energy and convert it to sugar), and then live out the rest of their single-year lives without eating.
By Levi Novey •
July 13, 2009
The U.S. National Park Service has partnered with the American Museum of Natural History to cryogenically freeze tissues from endangered species that live within U.S. national parks– eventually the new research collection will contain an estimated 1 million samples.
The effort will facilitate research that could help protect these endangered species from going extinct– or at least leave a record of their genetic makeup behind. The first specimens to enter the collection will be blood samples from California’s endangered Channel Island fox. They will be followed by genetic material from the American crocodile and the Hawaiian goose.
By Levi Novey •
May 15, 2009
Move over Hubble Telescope, the European Space Agency has launched the largest telescope ever sent to space on a mission to study how the Big Bang created the universe. This comes right on the heels of another related and exciting scientific breakthrough: for the first time ever, scientists have successfully showed us how the earliest building blocks for life on the planet probably formed from scratch. Are we on the brink of a more complete understanding of our planet’s evolution?
Details you say? Here they are. The European Space Agency’s
plan to study the Big Bang comes at a cost of $952 million. Yesterday a rocket launched from the South American country of French Guiana sent the telescope as well as a spacecraft above our atmosphere, and they both could very well soon be household names.
By Derek Markham •
April 13, 2009
Scientists at the University of Utah report that the genes of offspring are modified in the womb as a result of the mother’s diet, emphasizing that what the mother eats (or doesn’t eat) influences the health of the child throughout its life.
“The new ‘epigenetics’ has taught us how nature is changed by nurture. The jury’s in and, yes, expectant moms really are eating for two. This study shows not only that we need to address problems such as preeclampsia during pregnancy, but also that prenatal care is far more important than anyone could have imagined a decade ago.” - Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of FASEB Journal
By Leslie Berliant •
March 25, 2009
Courtesy of Scientific American and Environmental Health News, another reason to despise plastic. According to an article by Matthew Cimitile, researchers believe that airborne pollution from plastics manufacturing may change the DNA of cattle.
It all started when ranchers living 4 miles downwind from the Formosa Plastics facilities in Point Comfort, Texas noticed that their steers were losing weight, their cows were miscarrying and having stillborn calves and some of the calves were being born with abnormalities like missing limbs:
Tests have revealed that herds as far as six miles downwind of the factories have more DNA disturbances than other herds not downwind, according to scientists at Texas A & M University. The changes in chromosome structure and other genetic damage can increase the animal’s risk of cancer and reproductive damage
By Jake Richardson •
March 9, 2009
Two Harvard researchers say they have successfully constructed a ribosome.
Harvard Medical School Professor Greg Church and Research Fellow Michael Jewett extracted ribosomes from E. coli bacteria, processed them, and then made new ones from the molecules.
By Alex Felsinger •
January 13, 2009
Eight years after starting their efforts, scientists in India still believe they will be able to resurrect the long-extinct Indian Cheetah if they can acquire the cell line of the closely related Asiatic Cheetah, which lives in Iran.
“If a cell line made from the Cheetah was available, it would have been possible to resurrect the species,” said S. Shivaji, a scientist at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.It seems there are at present a few Cheetahs in Iran. If tissue or cell samples could be procured from Iran it should be possible to clone the Cheetah using Leopard as a surrogate mother.”
But should species that have already gone extinct be brought back through cloning?
