Life Sciences

Immortality in exchange for infertility?

Homozygous mutants of the second generation lived ten times longer, but turned out to be infertile. Maybe it is possible to somehow compensate for the infertility associated with the age-1 gene and leave only immortality?

The dream of eternal life

Finding a "Macropoulos remedy" that allows you to defeat old age with one pill is a hopeless task, but in recent years, the problems of gerontology have attracted increasing attention from researchers in various fields of life sciences.

New details of blood clotting: a computer model of fibrinogen has been created

Cosmetics and genetics: what do they have in common?

Cosmetics that would be able to "intelligently" influence the genetic mechanisms of skin cells are still as far from real embodiment as gene therapy of diseases.

Weed out mutants

The organism of a higher animal is able to get rid of mutant mitochondria extremely effectively: they disappear after 2-6 generations. The selection of normal mitochondria occurs in female germ cells or at the subcellular level.

IBM develops DNA-based chips

The search for ways to reduce the size of chips and increase the number of transistors placed on them led IBM scientists to a completely new way of creating processors using DNA molecules.

Where can we expect new epidemics?

The authors agree with the position of most epidemiologists that the most important thing is to stop the spread of the disease at an early stage, even when there is no specific method of its treatment.

Creating memories

A new line of genetically modified mice allowed scientists at the Scripps Research Institute to identify cellular contacts formed during the memorization process.

Human population genetics: the first of a new wave of research

New techniques that provide simultaneous analysis of hundreds of thousands of genetic markers provide results sufficient to draw conclusions about interactions between human populations and prehistoric human migrations with a much higher degree of reliability than was previously possible.

Eva's Daughters: genes, history and geography

"Y-chromosomal Adam" and "mitochondrial Eve" are not real people, but virtual points from which the branching of the molecular family tree of mankind begins.

Sons of Adam: Genes, history and geography

Now any of us can determine our ancestry to the progenitors of mankind. However, not biblical, but molecular-genetic – "mitochondrial Eve" and "Y-chromosomal Adam".

Where are the most mutants?

Several research groups are trying to determine which of the human races' genomes contain more mutations and how dangerous these mutations are for its representatives.

Is the chop fried, with blood or cloned?

Today there are about 4 thousand heads of cloned cattle in the world. They are used mainly for breeding and while products from clones are not officially sold anywhere – although there are incredible stories that "cloned" products have already hit the market in the past.

Hot spots of modern gerontology

The increase in life expectancy and the aging of the population of developed countries have increased interest in gerontology, and above all, in the study of the primary mechanisms of aging of organisms and populations, as well as factors determining life expectancy.

454-sequencing (high-performance DNA pyrosequencing)

A new generation of DNA sequencing technologies, which allows the reading of genetic texts with unprecedented speed and productivity, has found wide application in biomedical research and has become a prerequisite for impressive scientific achievements.

The choice between life and death

The concept of phenoptosis makes us look at the problem of aging in a different way. What if this is the way nature forces us to leave, making room for the young? What if this slow extinction, as well as the apoptosis program, is embedded in the form of a genetic program in our genome, and its main biological meaning is the acceleration of evolution? These questions allowed us to formulate a theory of programmed aging as an instrument of evolution.

Leave the yoghurts alone! The patients didn't die from them!

It is highly likely that probiotics became the cause of death of the patients participating in the clinical trial," the Utrecht University Clinic said in a press release, "but yoghurts have nothing to do with it.

Inhumane vivisection

Students of the Timiryazev Academy and a number of other Russian universities will no longer dissect animals. Inhumane vivisection was replaced by videotapes and computer programs.

Distributed computing for personalized Medicine

To carry out work within the framework of a joint project on the development of personalized medicine, which received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health last October, scientists use tissue microchips, pattern recognition algorithms and network supercomputer computing.

Mouse Alzheimer's under the microscope: day by day

Of course, the neurophysiology of mice differs from that of humans, so it's too early to draw final conclusions. Nevertheless, the work of Professor Hyman and his collaborators strongly supported the hypothesis of the beta-amyloid nature of Alzheimer's disease.