life inspired

"The discovery of DNA in a 400,000-year-old human thigh bone will open up a new frontier in the study of our ancestors." News article @ BBC News

Related scientific article @ Nature.

Labels: dna, history

Submitted by Aaron Schwartz (thanks!)

"In this paper we construct a mathematical model for DNA replication based on Shannon's mathematical theory for communication. We treat DNA replication as a communication channel. We show that the mean replication rate is maximal with four nucleotide bases under the primary assumption that the pairing time of the G-C bases is between 1.65 and 3 times the pairing time of the A-T bases." Full paper @ Bull Math Biol. 2006

Labels: dna

"Your DNA is not a blueprint. Day by day, week by week, your genes are in a conversation with your surroundings. Your neighbors, your family, your feelings of loneliness: They don’t just get under your skin, they get into the control rooms of your cells. Inside the new social science of genetics." News article @ Pacific Standard

Labels: dna, gene regulation

"How life began is one of the most compelling questions humanity has ever asked. Atoms and molecules, driven by nothing more than unthinking chemical processes, somehow became the complex reproductive organisms that we see roaming the Earth today -- somehow, they became us." Full artcle @ Wired UK

Labels: chemistry, dna, life, mathematical modeling, origin

A Turing machine inside a Turing machine?

"The enormous scale of the invasion of vertebrate genomes by viral sequences has become apparent through analyses of complete genomes. Sequences derived from many kinds of RNA and DNA viruses have found a convenient resting place in host genomes during evolution, and the process is ongoing. Retroviral genomes, the major and best understood viral insertions, alone account for 6 to 14% of the genomes analyzed to date, including ∼8% of human DNA. These endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) comprise more genomic DNA than that encoding the host proteome. The functionality or otherwise of this "junk" DNA has become the focus of an intense debate. Here we consider a number of consequences of ERV acquisition (see the figure"). Full paper @ Scienve

Labels: dna, evolution, Turing machine, virus

"In 1953, Watson and Crick not only described the double-helix structure of DNA, but also embraced the idea that genes contained a code that expresses information and thereby changed our view of life. This article traces how these ideas entered biological thinking and highlights the connections between different branches of science at the time, exploring the power of metaphor in science." Full article @ Cell

Labels: cybernetics, dna, information, life

"Genome Biology speaks to a scientist involved in the discovery of the structure of DNA, and asks modern geneticists to highlight the key advances that have followed." News article @ The Scientist Magazine®. In-depth interview with Raymond Gosling @ Genome Biology.

Labels: dna, history, science

More evidence that DNA and RNA are directly involved in learning and memory in the brain... Connectionism seems not to be enough... "Scientists studying mice reported that normal neuronal activation stimulated by exposure to new environments can cause temporary DNA breaks—suggesting that transient damage may be involved in learning and memory." Full article @ Nature Neuroscience

Labels: dna, memory, neuroscience

"Transposable genetic elements (TEs) comprise a vast array of DNA sequences, all having the ability to move to new sites in genomes either directly by a cut-and-paste mechanism (transposons) or indirectly through an RNA intermediate (retrotransposons).[...] it is precisely the elaboration of epigenetic mechanisms from their prokaryotic origins as suppressors of genetic exchanges that underlies both the genome expansion and the proliferation of TEs characteristic of higher eukaryotes. This is the inverse of the prevailing view that epigenetic mechanisms evolved to control the disruptive potential of TEs. The evidence that TEs shape eukaryotic genomes is by now incontrovertible. My thesis, then, is that TEs and the transposases they encode underlie the evolvability of higher eukaryotes' massive, messy genomes."Transposable Elements, Epigenetics, and Genome Evolution

Labels: dna, epigenetics, evolvability, RNA

"A new high-coverage DNA sequencing method reconstructs the full genome of Denisovans — relatives to both Neandertals and humans — from genetic fragments in a single finger bone." Full news article @ Nature

Labels: dna, evolution, humans

"The FOXP2 gene is implicated in the development of human speech and language. A comparison of the human and chimpanzee FOXP2 proteins highlights the differences in function in the two species." Full article @ Nature.com.

Labels: dna, evolution, genetics, natural language

DNA polymerase enzymes that are responsible for DNA replication can work faster than previously thought. Full paper @ PNAS.

Labels: dna, replication

"The emerging picture of microbes as gene-swapping collectives demands a revision of such concepts as organism, species and evolution itself.[...] Here we explain why we foresee such a dramatic transformation, and why we believe the molecular reductionism that dominated twentieth-century biology will be superseded by an interdisciplinary approach that embraces collective phenomena." Full article @ Biology's next revolution : Article : Nature

Labels: dna, evolution

"Scientists have decoded the chimp genome and compared it with that of humans, a major step toward defining what makes people human and developing a deep insight into the evolution of human sexual behavior". Full article:
In Chimpanzee DNA, Signs of Y Chromosome's Evolution at the NYTimes Web site.

Labels: dna, evolution, genetics

"DNA transfer from bacteria to animals is more common than thought. Researchers have found a surprise hidden in the DNA of a fruitfly: what seems to be the entire genome of a parasitic bacterium called Wolbachia. Smaller bits of the promiscuous parasite's genetic material turned up in worms and wasps, too." Full Sttory @ news@nature.com

Labels: bacteria, dna, DNA transfer, information