An anonymous reader shares a months-old report, which is getting some attention this week: Many clones are born with defects and genetic disorders, and since those imperfections aren’t what their buyer is spending tens of thousands of dollars on, they end up discarded. That’s the price. Neonatal complications for cloned animals abound: Poor placenta and fetal development in the womb lead…
Tag: Mutations
More Than a Thousand Scientists Have Built the Most Detailed Picture of Cancer Ever
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: More than a thousand scientists have built the most detailed picture of cancer ever in a landmark study. They said cancer was like a 100,000-piece jigsaw, and that until today, 99% of the pieces were missing. Their studies, published in the journal Nature, provide an almost complete picture of all cancers. They…
Were snakes the source of China’s coronavirus outbreak?
A report suggests that snakes – the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra – might have been the original source of the coronavirus that’s triggered an outbreak of deadly infectious respiratory illnesses in China this year. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/snakes-original-source-china-coronavirus-outbreak…
Early Humans Domesticated Themselves, New Genetic Evidence Suggests
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: A new study — citing genetic evidence from a disorder that in some ways mirrors elements of domestication — suggests modern humans domesticated themselves after they split from their extinct relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, approximately 600,000 years ago. Domestication encompasses a whole suite of genetic changes that arise as a species is…
China Gene-Edited Baby Experiment ‘May Have Created Unintended Mutations’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The gene editing performed on Chinese twins to immunize them against HIV may have failed and created unintended mutations, scientists have said after the original research was made public for the first time. Excerpts from the manuscript were released by the MIT Technology Review to show how Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui ignored…
Genetically-Engineered Microbe No Longer Needs to Eat Food To Grow
“Synthetic biologists have performed a biochemical switcheroo,” reports Science magazine: They’ve re-engineered a bacterium that normally eats a diet of simple sugars into one that builds its cells by absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2), much like plants. The work could lead to engineered microbes that suck CO2 out of the air and turn it into medicines and other high-value compounds. “The implications…
New Gene Editing Tool Could Fix Most Harmful DNA Mutations
Scientists have raised fresh hopes for treating people with genetic disorders by inventing a powerful new molecular tool that, in principle, can correct the vast majority of mutations that cause human genetic diseases. From a report: The procedure, named “prime editing,” can mend about 89% of the 75,000 or so harmful mutations known to mangle the human genome and lead to…
CRISPR upgrade could make genome editing better and safer
A new variant of CRISPR, dubbed prime editing, should make it even better at correcting disease-causing mutations Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2220476-crispr-upgrade-could-make-genome-editing-better-and-safer/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tiny stature of extinct ‘Hobbit’ thanks to fast evolution
New research suggests that the tiny human species – that survived until about 18,000 years ago, later than any human species other than our own – evolved its small size remarkably quickly while living on an isolated island. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/tiny-extinct-hobbit-human-species-fast-evolution…
Europeans have steadily accumulated mutations for thousands of years
The number of mildly harmful mutations in the European population has increased over the last 45,000 years, a lingering effect of early migration into Europe Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2215806-europeans-have-steadily-accumulated-mutations-for-thousands-of-years/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…