DFG loosens eligibility requirements for the Emmy Noether Programme
...ience, are required. In addition to this, personal selection interviews are being introduced and the age limit is being replaced by a regulation that allows approval for the programme with up to four years of postdoctoral experience. The funding period of the Emmy Noether Programme usually lasts for five years...Weizmann Insitute scientists show how proteins beat the evolutionary stakes
...n promiscuous functions that have never been under selection pressure. These latent "underground" skills may provide the evolutionary shortcut needed for rapid adaptation. Dr. Dan Tawfik's research is supported by the Y. Leon Benoziyo Institute for Molecular Medicine, the Dolfi and Lola Ebner Center for Biomed...'From the Sidelines' describes the making of a scientific revolution
...for the Performing Arts. On campus, she guided the selection of art for some of the largest construction projects in the university's history, including the Knight Library expansion and the university's trend-setting science complex. UO scientists were involved in the design process integrating old and new bui...Evidence that human brain evolution was a special event
...of other mammals." To further examine the role of selection in the evolution of brain-related genes, Lahn and ... neural cells to live and function. If intensified selection indeed drove the dramatic changes in the size and organization of the brain, the developmental genes...University of Chicago researchers discovered that humans are a 'privileged' evolutionary lineage
...uman primates and other mammals because of natural selection processes unique to the human lineage. Researchers...of mutations acquired though exceptionally intense selection favoring more complex cognitive abilities," said lead scientist Bruce Lahn, an assistant professor o...Highlights of January 2005 issue of Biology of Reproduction
...l block" of embryo development in vitro. "Genetic selection of mouse male germline stem cells in vitro: Offspr... cells, introduction of genetic modifications, and selection of the modified stem cells. Mito Kanatsu-Shinohara and colleagues met the first challenge with a coc...Genome comparison of four campylobacter strains yields new genetic markers and clues to virulence
...r strains to TIGR for sequencing and analysis. The selection was based on interesting features of the strains, such as virulence, resistance to drugs, or an association with a clinical illness. In 2000, scientists had published the first genome of a Campylobacter species C. jejuni which is used as a m...New method simplifies search for genetic changes associated with disease
...searchers developed a method called direct genomic selection that accelerates the transition between family or ...ethods that they've already applied direct genomic selection to a region of DNA linked to psoriasis, a disfiguring and potentially debilitating inherited skin co...The Louis-Jeantet-Prize for Medicine 2005
... changes that were fixed in the genome by positive selection and may thus have conferred an advantage to human ancestors. Understanding the genetics of such traits not only broadens our fundamental knowledge about evolution and human biology, it may also contribute to our understanding of the basis of diseases...Novel asthma study shows multiple genetic input required; single-gene solution shot down
...irway hyperresponsiveness, or AHR), the team "used selection for a disease phenotype in a serial backcross" whereby offspring showing certain laboratory-induced asthma-like reactions to stimuli were then used for breeding the next generation. "In this strategy," they explain, "genomic regions that are causally...Born to run? Capacity for aerobic exercise linked to risk of heart disease
...dy are the product of 11 generations of artificial selection for exercise capacity conducted by U-M scientists ...ortant to remember that, as a result of artificial selection over 11 generations, our low-capacity rats have an abnormally low concentration of proteins required...Why attractive (but costly) males get the girls
...rediction, their results suggest that there may be selection for choosing costly mates and that generating a reliable analysis of the fitness consequences requires a long view: look at the reproductive success of mom's sons and daughters before judging her taste in mates. ...Lack of potential mates has lead to 'sloppy' gene control and risk of disease for humans
...se mutations would have been overridden by natural selection from a larger pool of available DNA. This contrasts dramatically with rats and mice which, because of their larger ancestral population, have been able to maintain the integrity of their regulatory sections of DNA. The researchers, from the Universit......ccumulation. Keightley and colleagues propose that selection is ineffective against mildly unfavorable mutation...anted mutations were to increase, stronger natural selection against them is likely to develop in parallel, Keightley and colleagues explain, protecting our fitn...The opportunity for canalization and the evolution of genetic networks
...mental perturbations. The models show that natural selection for robustness will only be as strong as the cost of disrupting the network. Because the risk of mutational damage is limited by the mutation rate, these results imply that robustness to mutation will play only a small part in the evolution of geneti...Field-cricket study shows that when it comes to competition, sperm quality matters
...ionary theory has been the realization that sexual selection continues after mating; selection includes not only the competition among males to mate with females but also, in many species, the co...Experimental domestication of foxes yields clues to cognitive evolution
...mestication in dogs occurred as a result of direct selection for communicative ability or instead as a correlated by-product of breeding selection against fear and aggression toward humans. To better understand how dogs evolved their unusual socia...Heterosis in populations in nature of a domesticated plant
...rporation? The authors demonstrate a novel case of selection for heterozygosity that explains this paradox, showing that humans inadvertently favour heterozygous volunteers. When farmers weeded fields, they killed small volunteers, but retained large ones, which were also the most heterozygous. Demonstrating ...Scientists document complex genomic events leading to the birth of new genes
...different than those of their progenitors. Natural selection acts on gene duplications, most often by deleting them from the gene pool or by degrading them into non-functional pseudogenes. This is because fully functional duplicated genes, in combination with the corresponding parent gene, produce abnormally ...Amino acids in nectar enhance butterfly fecundity: A long awaited link
...d that butterflies have acted as agents of natural selection on nectar composition. In order to determine whether butterflies actually need nectar amino acids, researchers from the University of Basel raised map butterfly caterpillars on both nitrogen poor and nitrogen rich stinging nettle. After the butterfli...