Unleashing healthy food (for dogs)
Nutrigenomics is a relatively new science that explores the relationship between genetic makeup and certain nutrients found in food that may assist in the prevention of specific diseases. It may help...
View ArticleSpit if You Want Your Genetic Code
Everybody has 23 pairs of chromosomes. It’s just part of our genetic makeup. We get half from our mothers and half from our fathers. And that combination of genes outlines our natural abilities, our...
View ArticleTalking Trash About Biofuel
Steven Hutcheson, professor of cell biology and molecular genetics and president and CEO of Zymetis Inc. (right), and Ben Woodard, (left), director of the UMd Mtech Bioprocess Scale-Up Facility. A...
View ArticleNational DNA Day
National DNA Day 2008 image, courtesy of National Human Genome Research Institute Today marks the 55th Anniversary of the discovery of DNA’s structure. It’s also the 5th Anniversary of the fully...
View ArticleSpinal Cord Atlas Unveiled
Courtesy of Allen Brain Institute Thousands of spinal cord injuries and disease could disappear overnight if doctors and scientists could figure out how to turn some genes off and others on. This...
View ArticlePersonlized Genome: A Discussion with Leading Minds
Cells from children with genetic disease Progeria, photo by Brian C. Capell, NHGRI Some of the top scientific minds met at University of Washington last spring. Their purpose–to discuss the future of...
View ArticleRinging Up the Wrong DNA
Courtesy of Barcode of Life Initiative An ambitious undertaking to count and categorize all life on Earth is under way and has hit a new snag. With almost a half million species assigned unique...
View ArticleDNA Sequencing for Less
DNA molecules courtesy of LAGUNA DESIGN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A few years ago scientists decided that they needed to make sequencing a complete set of human DNA affordable. So began the race to get...
View ArticleOne Celled Solutions
Model of a phage attacking a microbe, courtesy of Ohio State University Science is facing some big questions, like how will we capture excess atmospheric carbon dioxide or how will we overcome...
View ArticleHollywood Gets Science
As the line between fact and fiction blurs in television and film productions, Hollywood is turning to the National Academies of Science for a much-needed dose of reality. A new initiative, called the...
View ArticleRejuvenating Resveratrol
12 Days of Science: Day 5 Resveratrol, a key ingredient in red wine may lead to fountain of youth Staying young and living longer is something that we all strive to do. Now science is coming closer to...
View ArticleBovine Genome Moos Science Forward
Cows are more like people than we thought. Or so says new international research stemming from a six-year analysis of the entire genetic code for cows. Over 300 researchers from over 25 countries have...
View ArticleSwine Flu on the March
Swine flu is racing across the world, spreading a deadly virus from continent to continent. The World Health Organization is worried about the beginning of a pandemic. The Center For Disease Control...
View ArticleDiscovering an Ocean of Medicine
Cures to the most mundane and deadly illnesses have been found deep in the jungles, high in the mountains and hidden in the rainforests. But until recently not many scientists were looking to the ocean...
View ArticleSynthetic Biology Takes on a Life of Its Own
Life is often stranger than fiction. But the direction that biology is heading, synthetic life could be stranger than science fiction. The emerging field of synthetic biology is moving closer and...
View Article2 Cancer Codes Cracked
The International Cancer Genome Project is the largest genetic undertaking since the Human Genome Project. It is trying to sequence the DNA of 50 types of cancer over the next few years. Researchers...
View ArticleRose Ellen’s Genetic Assist
A cancer patient is helping doctors at the Mayo Clinic unlock a few genetic secrets. Rose Ellen Heley allowed oncologists to decode her DNA and map her genome. Mayo Clinic researchers have learned...
View ArticleCraig Venter Gives Life to First Synthetic Cell
The CBC’s science correspondent Bob McDonald puts the world’s first synthetic cell into perspective.
View Article2010 Science Roundup
On the last day of 2010, the final day of the last year in the first decade of the 21st Century, we bid farewell to another year. Let’s take a look back over the last 12 months through the eyes of...
View ArticleE. Coli Outbreak Strikes European Veggies
As of Wednesday afternoon officials said 17 people had died in Germany and one in Sweden. A recent E. coli outbreak across Europe is believed to have started in northern Germany but it appears to be...
View ArticleOutgrowing the Plague
Every year about 10-15 people in the U.S. contract the plague. Just the sound of the world plague sounds ominous. But the illness is much less of a death sentence than it was during the Dark Ages....
View ArticleX Prize Opens Centenarian Genome Competition
The first scientific team to sequence the genomes of 100 one-hundred year olds wins $10 million. It’s the latest offering from the science competition organization, X Prize Foundation, a non-profit...
View ArticleFrankincense Shortage on the Horizon
It’s almost Christmas and the value of the gifts of the Three Wise Men is on the rise. For those not remembering the Nativity story the Three Wise Men brought three items, gold, frankincense and myrrh...
View ArticleGene Mapping Reaches Major Milestone
For years, scientists have been talking about the era of personalized medicine. While many preparations are underway, the biggest hurdle to widespread adoption has been the prohibitive cost to read a...
View ArticleWhite House Stages Science Fair
President Obama fires a marshmallow gun and lets robots roam his White House at the White House Science Fair. Three-year-old Danielle Fairchild probably can’t grasp the magnitude of what she’s...
View ArticleBacteria Gene Inserted in Corn to Make it More Drought Tolerant
Drought resistant corn is coming soon. It’s the latest transgenic offering from the Monsanto seed company. After the US Department of Agriculture chose not to regulate DroughtGard, a new species of...
View ArticleMidwest Drought Allows Farmers to Test Drought-Resistant Crops
Nearly half of the U.S. corn crop isn’t good enough to eat, not even by cows. A widespread drought that has affected much of the Midwest is ravaging corn raised to feed cattle and forcing farmers to...
View ArticleNIH Uses DNA Detective Work to Curb Superbug Outbreak
The National Institutes of Health didn’t tell anyone outside its clinic in Maryland that it was fighting a major battle against a superbug for almost a year. And at times the agency didn’t know who...
View ArticleJunk DNA Finally Has a Purpose
If the human genome is the computer of our cells then newly discovered gene switches are the operating system. When the Human Genome Project finished sequencing the book of life 12 years ago,...
View ArticleBillionaires Sweeten Science Prize Pot
Privately funded science prizes are all the rage. The X Prize Foundation laid the groundwork for this type of basic research incentive. Now a group of science-minded billionaires are sweetening the...
View ArticleDNA Test Shows Rampant Fish Fraud
Something’s definitely fishy at the fish market, the sushi restaurant and across the seafood industry. New research from the organization Oceana shows that up to one third of all seafood sold in the...
View ArticleHeLa Cell Genome Sparks Privacy Concerns
When a European team announced they had successfully sequenced the entire genome of the first immortalized cell line they didn’t think it would cause a controversy. While they were happy to have...
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