Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 1, 2021 at 10:34am

Retron Library Recombineering (RLR): New gene editing tool  

Researchers  have created a new gene editing tool called Retron Library Recombineering (RLR) that makes this task easier. RLR generates up to millions of mutations simultaneously, and "barcodes" mutant cells so that the entire pool can be screened at once, enabling massive amounts of data to be easily generated and analyzed. The achievement, which has been accomplished in bacterial cells, is described in a recent paper in PNAS.

 

RLR enabled scientists to do something that's impossible to do with CRISPR: they randomly chopped up a bacterial genome, turned those genetic fragments into single-stranded DNA in situ, and used them to screen millions of sequences simultaneously.

RLR is a simpler, more flexible gene editing tool that can be used for highly multiplexed experiments, which eliminates the toxicity often observed with CRISPR and improves researchers' ability to explore mutations at the genome level.

 Max G. Schubert et al. High-throughput functional variant screens via in vivo production of single-stranded DNA, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2018181118

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-crispr-retrons.html?utm_source=nwlett...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 1, 2021 at 9:51am

Three new studies suggest Z-genome is much more widespread in bacte...

Three teams working independently have found evidence that suggests the Z-genome in bacteria-invading viruses is much more widespread than thought. All three of the groups have used a variety of genomic techniques to identify parts of the pathways that lead development of the Z-genome in bacteria-invading viruses known as bacteriophages. The first team was made up of researchers from several institutions in China and one in Singapore, the second with members from several institutions in France; the third was an international effort. All three teams have published their results in the journal Science. Michael Grome and Farren Isaacs with Yale University have also published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining the work of all three teams.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 1, 2021 at 7:05am

The Evolution of Bacteria on a “Mega-Plate” Petri Dish

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 30, 2021 at 12:40pm

A clock’s accuracy may be tied to the entropy it creates

A clock made from a wiggling membrane produces more disorder as it becomes more accurate

Today’s most advanced clocks keep time with an incredibly precise rhythm. But a new experiment suggests that clocks’ precision comes at a price: entropy.

Entropy, or disorder, is created each time a clock ticks. Now, scientists have measured the entropy generated by a clock that can be run at varying levels of accuracy. The more accurate the clock’s ticks, the more entropy it emitted, physicists report in a paper accepted to Physical Review X.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clock-time-accuracy-entropy-dis...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 30, 2021 at 12:02pm

These cellular clocks help explain why elephants are bigger than mice

Biologists are uncovering how tiny timekeepers in our cells might govern body size, lifespan and ageing.

Time keepers in our cells: Biologists are uncovering how tiny ‘clocks’ in our cells might help govern body size, lifespan and ageing. (Mouse cells seem to run faster than human cells, which tick faster than whale cells.) A wave of research is starting to yield answers for one such timepi.... It helps developing embryos to form repeating body segments, such as vertebrae. Researchers want to understand how differences in developmental pace give rise to organisms with such different bodies and behaviours.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 30, 2021 at 11:59am

The Wave Beneath Their Wings

Researchers developed a theoretical model that describes how pelicans take advantage of wind updrafts generated by breaking waves to glide in a practice the scientists call wave-slope soaring.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 30, 2021 at 11:57am

How SARS-CoV-2 hijacks human cells to evade immune system

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered one way in which SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, hijacks human cell machinery to blunt the immune response, allowing it to establish infection, replicate and cause disease. In short, the virus genome gets tagged with a special marker by a human enzyme that tells the immune system to stand down, while at the same time ramping up production of the surface proteins that SARS-CoV-2 uses as a doorknob to enter cells. The study, published April 22, 2021 in Cell Reports, helps lay the groundwork for new anti-viral immunotherapies  treatments that work by boosting a patients immune system, rather than directly killing the virus. Its very smart of this virus to use host machinery to simultaneously go into stealth mode and get inside more cells

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 30, 2021 at 11:28am

The mystery of sleep: Why can’t we stay awake indefinitely?

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 30, 2021 at 10:01am

Lightning may be an important source of air-cleaning chemicals

A storm-chasing airplane caught thunderstorms producing extremely high concentrations of two important oxidants

Lightning could play an important role in flushing pollutants out of the atmosphere.

Observations from a storm-chasing airplane reveal that lightning can forge lots of air-cleansing chemicals called oxidants, researchers report online April 29 in Science. Oxidants help clear the air by reacting with contaminants like methane to form molecules that are more water soluble or stickier, allowing them to more easily rain out of Earth’s atmosphere or stick to its surface.

Researchers knew lightning produces nitric oxide, which can lead to the formation of oxidants such as hydroxyl radicals. But no one had seen lightning directly create lots of these oxidants.

--

In May and June 2012, a NASA jet measured two oxidants in storm clouds over Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. One was the hydroxyl radical, OH. The other was a similar oxidant called the hydroperoxyl radical, HO₂. The combined concentration of OH and HO₂ molecules, generated by lightning and other electrified regions of air, reached up to thousands of parts per trillion in some parts of these clouds. The highest concentration of OH previously observed in the atmosphere was a few parts per trillion. The most HO₂ observed was about 150 parts per trillion.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lightning-storm-chemicals-air-c...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 30, 2021 at 9:44am

Geoengineering: 'Plan B' for the planet

Dismissed a decade ago as far-fetched and dangerous, schemes to tame the effects of global warming by engineering the climate have migrated from the margins of policy debates towards centre stage.

--

Humanity taking 'colossal risk' with our future: Nobels

The failure to halt climate change, the destruction of nature and other intertwined global crises poses an existential risk to humanity, ten Nobel laureates said Thursday following the first-ever Nobel Prize Summit.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 665
• 666
• 667
• 668
• 669
• …
• 1111
• Next ›
• Page