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DNA

Colorized micrograph of a cell’s nucleus, showing euchromatin and heterochromatin.
Abstractions blog

Scientists Find Vital Genes Evolving in Genome’s Junkyard

By Viviane Callier
November 16, 2020
Read Later

Even genes essential for life can be caught in an evolutionary arms race that forces them to change or be replaced.

Fluorescent cross-section of a mouse’s brain.
Abstractions blog

Brain Cell DNA Refolds Itself to Aid Memory Recall

By Elena Renken
November 2, 2020
Read Later

Researchers see structural changes in genetic material that allow memories to strengthen when remembered.

Illustration of red spools with strands of DNA as the thread, with a blue brain in the background.
Quantized Columns

The Epigenetic Secrets Behind Dopamine, Drug Addiction and Depression

By R. Douglas Fields
October 27, 2020
Read Later

New research links serotonin and dopamine not just to addiction and depression, but to the ability to control genes.

Cells being injected with a microneedle.
Abstractions blog

Nobel Chemistry Prize Awarded for CRISPR ‘Genetic Scissors’

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 7, 2020
Read Later

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of CRISPR/Cas9 genetic editing.

A DNA double helix being struck by a cosmic ray.
Abstractions blog

Cosmic Rays May Explain Life’s Bias for Right-Handed DNA

By Charlie Wood
June 29, 2020
Read Later

Cosmic rays may have given right-handed genetic helixes an evolutionary edge at the beginning of life’s history.

Video of two slipper-shaped paramecia engaged in a sexual process called conjugation.
evolution

Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations.

By Christie Wilcox
April 23, 2020
Read Later

Why did sex evolve? Theories usually focus on the diversity of future generations, but some researchers find compelling explanations in the immediate benefits to individuals.

genomics

Where Do New Genes Come From?

By Viviane Callier
April 9, 2020
Read Later

In their search for sources of genetic novelty, researchers find that some “orphan genes” with no obvious ancestors evolve out of junk DNA, contrary to old assumptions.

Illustration of two strips of movie film coiled around each other in a double helix.
behavior

Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain

By Viviane Callier
October 16, 2019
Read Later

Studies suggest that epigenetics allows some learned adaptive responses to be passed down to new generations. The question is how.

3D illustration of a complex atomic structure.
Abstractions blog

Origin-of-Life Study Points to Chemical Chimeras, Not RNA

By Jordana Cepelewicz
September 16, 2019
Read Later

Origin-of-life researchers have usually studied the potential of pure starting materials, but messy mixtures of chemicals may kick-start life more effectively.


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