Categories
Archives
Author Archives: jyaron
Colo, Oldest Captive Gorilla, Celebrates 53rd Birthday
The oldest living gorilla in captivity, Colo (from Columbus, Ohio), celebrated her 53rd birthday with what looks like a giant, great ape-size cake (see video, click image or here). Interestingly, Colo is also the first gorilla every born in captivity. A Western Gorilla, her species is Critically Endangered. Colo is quite the matriarch, with one [...]
More Proof That Smoking Leads to Small-Cell Lung Cancer
In a Nature article published earlier this week, UK and US researchers have provided more proof that smoking has a direct effect on the development of small-cell lung cancer. This study describes 22,910 somatic mutations characterized by massively parallel sequencing technology (including 134 in highly important exon coding regions) in the small-cell lung cancer cell [...]
Posted in Biology, Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Health & Medicine Tagged Cancer, Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Lung Cancer, Mutations, Nature 3399 Comments
RNA Interference Technology Will Improve Pharmaceutical Production
RNA interference, or RNAi, has become a novel and useful tool for silencing gene expression in both cells and organisms as well as in developing therapies for diseases. A new study out of Taiwan has recently been published outlining how RNAi technology can be used to vastly increase the quantity and quality of recombinant protein [...]
New Insight About Why Chimpanzees Can’t Speak, But We Can
Why is it that humans can speak, but chimpanzees, with their >98% genetic identity to humans, can’t? For almost a decade scientists have known that the FOXP2 gene is responsible for the mendelian development of language in humans. Theories abound about how a mere 2 amino acid change may have been all that was needed [...]
Posted in Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Zoology Tagged Chimpanzee, Evolution, FOXP2, Gene, Nature, Speech, Zoology 2052 Comments
Visualize the Unbelievably Small Scale of the Cell (and other Biological Structures)
Single cells are small. Really, REALLY small. When you read that a suspended cell is approximately 10-15 microns in diameter it all seems fine and well; you’ll write it down or take note of it, then move along. However, if you stop to think about how small 10-15 microns is, it begins to baffle your [...]
Posted in Cell Biology, Genetics, Microbiology, Web Resources Tagged Cell Biology, Genetics, Microbiology, Web Resources 2200 Comments
First Synthetic Cellulosome In Yeast Created
ScienceDaily (Nov. 2, 2009) — A team of researchers led by University of California, Riverside (UCR) Professor of Chemical Engineering Wilfred Chen has constructed for the first time a synthetic cellulosome in yeast, which is much more ethanol-tolerant than the bacteria in which these structures are normally found.
Posted in Biology, Cell Biology, Microbiology Tagged Cellulosome, Microbiology, Synthetic, UCR 1968 Comments
New Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques Directly Image Drug Delivery
X Sunney Wei and others at Harvard University recently demonstrated a new technique for stimulated emission microscopy that allows high resolution imaging of generally non-fluorescent chromophores (such as drugs). This imaging technique relies on pumped laser sources and new techniques for obtaining the fluorescent emission streams. Use of this sort of microscopy could lead to [...]
Posted in Biology, Cell Biology, Microbiology, Microscopy Tagged Harvard, Microscopy, Nature, Pharmaceuticals, STED 2135 Comments
BioImage of the Week #2
The BioImage for this week comes to us from GPMatthews’ personal website. The site contains a large collection of fascinating images and articles, particularly on the pages that contain images of diatoms. These unicellular organisms are like biology’s snowflakes and often offer some of the most interesting and complex patterns that can be visualized under [...]
Posted in BioImage of the Week, Cell Biology, Microbiology, Microscopy Tagged Cell Biology, Dark Field, Diatom, Microbiology, Microscopy 2593 Comments
Great Video Depicting Transcription and Translation
This video, part of a PBS production titled DNA: The Secret of Life, depicts the process of transcription and translation, or in other terms, making mRNA from DNA and proteins from mRNA. The video shows the biologically correct molecules, which sets it apart from most other videos depicting the same process and gives it a [...]
Discovery Institute’s Embarrassing Diatribe About Darwinism