gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is widely accepted by the scientific community as a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a polypeptide or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism, though there still are controversies about what plays the role of the genetic material.[1] Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains. Genes hold the information to build and maintain an organism's cells and pass genetic traits to offspring. All organisms have many genes corresponding to various biological traits, some of which are immediately visible, such as eye color or number of limbs, and some of which are not, such as blood type, increased risk for specific diseases, or the thousands of basic biochemical processes that comprise life.[citation needed]
For more information about gene check the Wikipedia article here
ZME Science posts about gene
According to a new study conducted by Professor Gerald Crabtree, who heads a genetics laboratory at Stanford University in California, humans have peaked their intellectual capacities thousands of years ago, and now we are in a slow, but certain, state of decline. The provocative theory comes from one of the leading minds in genetics, and [...]
A newly published researchers by scientists at University of California Davis and Cornell University explains why beautiful, perfectly ripped tomatoes, that one can typically pick up from a local supermarket, are ironically less tastier than homegrown tomatoes, which look less appetizing. I had the good fortune of spending most of my early childhood in the [...]
Another breakthrough in biology and medicine was reported, as scientists were able, for the first time, to take skin cells from patients who had suffered heart failure and make them repair the cardiac muscle. The technique had been tested only on rats and it seemed decades could pass until it would become suitable for humans, [...]
Skin and hair color are most inherited from parents, and usually hint pretty accurately to a person’s ethnicity. Dark skin and hair are most common in the regions around the Equator, however natives of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago east of Papua New Guinea, seem to defy common expectations, as around 10% of the population [...]
Good news for men, and especially women: the Y chromosome, which holds the male sex determining genes in most mammals, including humans, is not going extinct, as some claim, as a new research found that the diminishing gene numbers have come to a halt and will remain this way. Sex chromosomes come in pairs, such [...]
The lead singer, rock legend bat beheader has done pretty much anything you can do in this life. He played in front of thousands, ate/drank/smoked/injected pretty much everything that can be, had motorcycle accidents, never ate right, and yet, at the proud age of 61 he’s alive and kicking just as he ever was. Researchers [...]
Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have conducted a study showing that the deletion of a particular gene makes mice smarter by unlocking a mysterious part of the brain, thought to be totally unflexible until now. When the gene, RGS14, is disabled, mice learn how to figure out mazes faster and more effective than [...]
History teems with example of brilliant artists that acted in very peculiar ways. They were absolutely brilliant, and they were absolutely mad; how can this be? Well, according to a new study published in Psychological Science the two traits often go hand in hand. In order to gather information on this, Szabolcs Kéri of Semmelweis [...]
This is what researchers believe to be the first true comeback of a gene in the human/great ape lineage; the study was led by Evan Eichler’s genome science laboratory at the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and they pointed out that the infection-fighting human IRGM is (as far as we know) [...]
How and why language appeared has been a subject of countless studies and hours of research, but the results haven’t been always clear and as a matter of fact, they’ve sometimes been contradictory. Still, according to a recent study conducted by Professor Nick Chater (UCL Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences) and his colleagues, one thing’s [...]
Recently, it seems there’s a gene for everything, from generosity to ruthlesness. That still doesn’t mean that you can blame everything on your genes, but it may go to show the fact that even some of the world’s most cruelest dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, at least according to a study [...]
Working with genes is something very delicate and dangerous at the same time. If scientists were able to, say, turn a gene off when it is not needed or harmful and then turn it on at a certain point then that would be a huge breakthrough, with a list of benefits that could go on [...]
Tue, Nov 13, 2012
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