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The spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel, when used with default settings, is known to convert gene names to dates and floating-point numbers. A programmatic scan of leading genomics journals reveals that approximately one-fifth of papers with supplementary Excel gene lists contain erroneous gene name conversions. The reason why you shouldn't use Excel (or Numbers or OpenOffice or ...) without knowing what it actually really does!

New technique can rapidly turn genes on and off, helping scientists better understand their function.

Does this have implications for AI algorithms??

I was actually thinking exactly about this question during my bike ride this morning. I am surprised that some codons would need to have a double meaning though because there is already a surplus of codons to translate into just 20-22 proteins (depending on organism). So there should be about 44 codons left to prevent translation errors and in addition regulate gene expression. If - as the article suggests - a single codon can take a dual role, does it so in different situations (needing some other regulator do discern those)? Or does it just perform two functions that always need to happen simultaneously? I tried to learn more from the underlying paper: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6164/1367.full.pdf All I got from that was a headache. :-\

Probably both. Likely a consequence of energy preservation during translation. If you can do the same thing with less genes you save up on the effort required to reproduce. Also I suspect it has something to do with modularity. It makes sense that the gene regulating for "foot" cells also trigger the genes that generate "toe" cells for example. No point in having an extra if statement.

recent paper on tardigrades taking others genes as mentioned by Riccarda

Is love just an epigenetic mechanism?

isn't it strange that one single gene mutation can enable or disable such a complex behavioural pattern? anything to take advantage of in our gate study (Guido?)

"For the first time, researchers have determined virtually the entire genome of a fetus using only a blood sample from the pregnant woman and a saliva specimen from the father."

looks like evolution is getting better and better understood

Researchers led by Ronald A. DePinho (above), a Harvard Medical School professor of genetics, say their work shows for the first time a dramatic reversal of many aspects of age-related degeneration in mice, a milestone in aging science achieved by engineering mice with a controllable telomerase gene. T

I would not yet volunteer ....

Nice approach to generate healthy skin and to patch parts or to replace the overall human skin. Next step - clinical studies.

A frog study provides the strongest evidence yet that a father's lifestyle may affect the next generation, via chemical tags that change gene activity SPERM pass on more than just their DNA. Chemical switches attached to the genomes of sperm - known as epigenetic tags - have been shown to alter the next generation for the first time.

"scientists at Harvard University say they've modified the CRISPR method so it can be used to effectively reverse mutations involving changes in one letter of the genetic code. That's important because two-thirds of genetic illness in humans involve mutations where there's a change in a single letter."

"Efficient introduction of specific homozygous and heterozygous mutations using CRISPR/Cas9" http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature17664.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20160428&spMailingID=51249830&spUserID=MTEzODM0NjYzMzgS1&spJobID=903461217&spReportId=OTAzNDYxMjE3S0 As posted here previously, the number and importance of CRISPR is growing steadily, but still plenty of work to make it a reliable tool. Maybe, next work for the Molecular Engineering RF?

so it took us 70% of the time Earth is in the habitable zone to develop, would this be normal or could it be much faster? In other words, would all forms of life that started on a planet that originated at a 'similar' point in time like us, be equally far developed?

That is actually quite tricky to estimate rly. If for no other reason than the fact that all of the mass extinctions we had over the Earth's history basically reset the evolutionary clock. Assuming 2 Earths identical in every way but one did not have the dinosaur wipe-out impact, that would've given non-impact Earth 60million years to evolve a potential dinosaur intelligent super race.

The opposite might be true - or might not be ;-). Since usually the rate of evolution increases after major extinction events the chance is higher to produce 'intelligent' organisms if these events happen quite frequently. Usually the time of rapid evolution is only a few million years - so Earth is going quite slow. Certainly extinction events don't reset the evolutionary clock - if they would never have happened Earth gene pool would probably be quite primitive. By the way: dinosaurs were a quite diverse group and large dinosaurs might well have had cognitive abilities that come close to whales or primates - the difference to us might be that we have hands to manipulate our environment and vocal cords to communicate in very diverse ways. Modern dinosaur (descendents), i.e. birds, contain some very intelligent species - especially with respect to their body size and weight.

By reactivating a dormant gene called Lin28a, which is active in embryonic stem cells, researchers were able to regrow hair and repair cartilage, bone, skin and other soft tissues in a mouse model.

regrow hair???!!!??? :-)

"Richard Arvey, the head of the NUS business school's department of management and organisation, has been looking into precisely how genes interact with different types of environment to create such things as entrepreneurial zeal and the ability to lead others."...They are doing experiments with twins...I want to try with my twin!!!:))

The release reports that researcher José Feijó says the " findings, implicating analogous genes in growth processes in both plants and animals, underscores how evolution re-uses successful mechanisms, over and over again."

Bioluminescent bacteria - here they start glowing when the conditions change. A perfect biosensor.

http://www.brain-map.org/ yummy! brains...

Scientists have entered a new path for regenerative medicine by altering age-worn cells in people over 90 into rejuvenated stem cells.