Apr 18
Remember those slightly horrifying sites that mash up two faces to tell you what your hypothetical babies might look like? With genome sequencing and "virtual embryos," we might actually be able to do that—using science.
Jan 24
Somewhere 11,000 years ago, something weird happened to a dog. It got cancer—and the really damn freaky part is that the cancer could survive even outside of its canine host. That unknown dog is long dead now, but its tumor cells have improbably lived on, continuing to sprout on the genitalia of dogs all over the world.
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Sep 20
If—like most of us—your entire understanding of DNA and genetics can be traced back to CSI reruns, you’re probably under the impression that your genome is unique; that it defines you completely. But scientists increasingly believe that’s not that case. In fact, we need to start thinking about our genomes differently.
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Jun 27
Scientists have managed to sequence the genome of a 700,000-year-old horse—in the process generating the oldest complete DNA sequence yet.
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Jan 08
Everyone knows that a drop of blood or strand of hair is all the police need to identify suspect’s DNA. But now scientists from Harvard have gone a step further: they can sequence an entire genome from a single cell. More »
Sep 06
For the past decade, scientists have been working on the assumption that 20,000 genes, less than 2 percent of the total genome, underpin human biology. But a massive international project called ENCODE has just revealed that plenty of the remaining 98 percent, once tossed aside as “junk DNA”, is in fact incredibly important. More »
Sep 02
Max Planck Institute sequences genome of Siberian girl from 80,000 years ago, smashes DNA barriers
Posted in: Today's Chili 
We’ve known little of the genetic sequences of our precursors, despite having found many examples of their remains: the requirement for two strands in traditional DNA sequencing isn’t much help when we’re usually thankful to get just one. The Max Planck Institute has devised a new, single-strand technique that may very well fill in the complete picture. Binding specific molecules to a strand, so enzymes can copy the sequence, has let researchers make at least one pass over 99.9 percent of the genome of a Siberian girl from roughly 80,000 years ago — giving science the most complete genetic picture of any human ancestor to date, all from the one bone you see above. The gene map tells us that the brown-skinned, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl was part of a splinter population known as the Denisovans that sat in between Neanderthals and ourselves, having forked the family tree hundreds of thousands of years before today. It also shows that there’s a small trace of Denisovans and their Neanderthal roots in modern East Asia, which we would never have known just by staring at fossils. Future discoveries could take years to leave an impact, but MPI may have just opened the floodgates of knowledge for our collective history.
Max Planck Institute sequences genome of Siberian girl from 80,000 years ago, smashes DNA barriers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Sep 2012 01:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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