An artist's representation of big data applied to DNA. (Credit: Zita/Shutterstock)
At first, it was just Mendel and some pea plants. In the 150 years that followed, matching pairs of chromosomes were labeled, As, Ts Cs and Gs were coupled off and, ultimately, 3 billion base pairs were sequenced in the correct order. By the end of the decade-long global effort known as the Human Genome Project, the genetic blueprint of life was finally sketched out.
Now, a smattering of
scientists are joi ...read more
The male white bellbird. (Credit: Anselmo d'Affonseca)
Visitors to the mountains of the northern Amazon can get unusually close to the white bellbird. Ornithologists have long suspected that this bird’s call is the loudest in the world, but a recent trek into the mountains and some careful measurements confirms that male White bellbirds do indeed have the loudest birdsong ever recorded.
The observation, published Monday in the journal Current Biology, comes with some unanswered ques ...read more
The popular gene-editing tool CRISPR works by cutting out genes. A new genetic tool instead works by searching for and replacing targeted genes, without breaking DNA. (Credit: Steven McDowell/Shutterstock)
Snip, snip. If you’ve been paying attention to the hubbub about gene editing, the first image that pops into your head might be of a pair of scissors. Today, when scientists use the popular gene-editing tool CRISPR, they’re essentially slicing through both strands of the iconic ...read more
This new and incredibly deep image from Hubble shows the dim and diffuse galaxy NGC 1052-DF4. New research presents the strongest evidence yet that this strange galaxy is basically devoid of dark matter. (Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/S. Danieli et al.)
stronomers have all but confirmed the universe has at least one galaxy that's woefully deficient in dark matter. The new finding not only indicates that galaxies really can exist without dark matter, but also raises fundamental questions about how s ...read more
The dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 1569 is frantically forming stars. New research shows that some dwarf galaxies, however, have had their star formation halted by the supermassive black hole in their center. (Credit: HST/NASA/ESA)
Astronomers know that most galaxies house supermassive black holes in their centers, from the largest galaxies down to small dwarfs. They also know that when supermassive black holes are actively feeding, they can slow or even stop the formation of stars in their home ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine