The earliest animals had human-like genes
...our species has retained characteristics of a very ancient ancestor that have been lost in more quickly-evolving animals. This overturns a commonly-held view of the nature of genes in the first animals. The work appears in the current issue of the journal Science. Genes hold the recipes for proteins. The gen...New insights into protein synthesis and Hepatitis C infections
... carrying transfer RNA (tRNA) via the ribosome, an ancient organelle so highly conserved by evolution that its core components are pretty much the same for all forms of life. Protein synthesis in mammalian cells begins with the loading of mRNA onto the small ribosome subunit, 40S, which is, in part, one o...Why the Amazon rainforest is so rich in species
...hundred thousand years old. Other groups were very ancient and hadn't produced many species over tens of millions of years, such as the clear-winged butterflies [the genus Oleria]. There was also a wide spectrum of ages in the other species they studied. Because tests revealed that the species were of varyin...Scientists fetch useful information from dog genome publications
...t instead that they preferentially fracture within ancient 'hot spots.' These fragile 'hot spots' contain an unusual number of guanine and cytosine DNA bases and appear to suffer higher rates of mutation." SINEs of genetic diversity Another study appearing in the dog genome section of Genome Research ......a of Greek Classics. Her research encompasses both ancient philosophy as well as classical literature, two areas which have usually only been studied entirely separately in the past. A particular feature of her work is the fact that she puts her research in the broader cultural and hermeneutic context. With ...Microbes under Greenland Ice may be preview of what scientists find under Mars' surface
... atmospheres of both Earth and Mars. If a class of ancient microbes called Archaea are the source of Mars' methane, as some scientists have proposed, then unmanned probes to the Martian surface should look for them at depths where the temperature is about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer tha...Scientists sequence DNA of woolly mammoth
... related Nature paper simultaneously. Experts in ancient DNA from McMaster University (Canada) have teamed ...hrough allows for the first time comparion of this ancient species with today's populations of African and Indian elephants, not just at the level of mitochond...Light-sensing cells in retina develop before vision
...cortex. Instead, they send signals to deeper, more ancient parts of the brain, such as the hypothalamus, from which they project to the brain regions that control the circadian clock as well as the response of the pupil to light. "The multi-electrode array technique that Dan Tu and Don Zhang have brought in...Grant allows ASU archaeologist to study how environment influences evolution
...understanding of the physical environment in which ancient peoples lived. Marean says relatively little is kn...ts together with scientists specializing in caves, ancient dune systems, chemical dating methods and other topics relevant to human evolution and ecological st...Science's Breakthrough of the Year: Watching evolution in action
...f a short gamma ray burst -- a rapid merger of two ancient neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole. Brain Wiring and Disease: Several studies in 2005 suggest that diseases such schizophrenia, Tourette syndrome, and dyslexia are rooted in "faulty wiring" of the brain's neural circuitry during develo...Study reveals classic symbiotic relationship between ants, bacteria
...ogist Cameron Currie illustrates the intricate and ancient nature of this mutualistic relationship. The researchers found that the ants house the bacteria in specialized, highly adapted cavities and nourish them with glandular secretions-an indication that the ants, bacteria, fungus and parasites have likel...Polymer aids in blood clotting, pointing way to new treatment
...ompted by an old scientific image and involving an ancient but understudied molecule may lead to a new treatm... picture is that we've found a new function for an ancient molecule," he said. "Polyphosphate has been around for billions of years. Roberto's discovery that t...Insects and mammals share common fat-building pathway, study suggests
... the so-called hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway--an ancient suite of genes involved in determining the fates of many cell types--might also play an important role in fat formation in both flies and mice. The findings are the first to show a conserved effect of genes on fat storage from insects to mammals, acc...Common enzyme is a key player in DNA repair
... repair DNA damage extends to mice and archaea, an ancient and diverse group of single-celled organisms. In nearly every organism, they believe, the same specialized enzyme is poised to patch over a certain kind of blemish so that it does not permanently damage the genome. The DinB gene and its protein prod...Berkeley scientists get first detailed look at Dicer
...c gene-silencing pathways." RNA interference is an ancient gene-silencing process that plays a fundamental role in a number of important functions, including viral defense, chromatin remodeling, genome rearrangement, developmental timing, brain morphogenesis and stem cell maintenance. All of these RNA inter...Molecule does more than slice and dice RNA
...cells of higher animals, suggesting that it has an ancient evolutionary heritage. Because of its ability to recognize double-stranded RNA, scientists think Dicer's original function may have been to defend cells from certain kinds of viruses. Having an image of Dicer from Giardia intestinalis, Doudna noted, ...Typhoid fever led to the fall of Athens
... colleagues using DNA collected from teeth from an ancient Greek burial pit points to typhoid fever as the di...lden Age of Pericles and Athenian dominance in the ancient world. It is thought that up to one third of the Athenians, including their charismatic leader, Peri...Genetic evidence shows colonialists pushed orang-utans to brink of extinction
...uch as colonial deforestation would be obscured by ancient demographic events. However, humans have so devastated orang-utan populations that the genetic signature of the recent bottleneck may have overshadowed any previous population fluctuations. "The results of the study underscores the need to act now t...Two new lakes found beneath Antarctic ice sheet
...e, if inhospitable, environment that may harbor an ancient and alien ecosystem adapted to life beneath the ice sheet. However, just how, when or even whether scientists will risk the possibility of contaminating the lakes to confirm their suspicions remains the subject of an ongoing international debate. The......nto sugars and oxygen via photosynthesis. In fact, ancient cyanobacteria produced most of the oxygen that allows animals to survive on Earth. Cyanobacteria such as Synechococcus are often found in the microbial mats that carpet hot springs, where life exists at near-boiling temperatures. These mats are highl...