It's no longer a question if genetically modified organisms will be released in the United States – they will. The new questions are: (1) What will they be? and (2) Where will they be released? With USDA approval of a field trial permit application, it looks like the answers are: Diamondback moths in upstate New York.
Biomedicine & Biotech
New research published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering shows that molecular and physical changes in skin cells can be used to calculate a "cellular age" that may be used as a proxy for healthspan.
A new report by the Dutch government states something we've known all along: Genetically modified mosquitoes are safe to use to combat the spread of viral infections. Although critics may still think that the modification process is scary, they have nothing to worry about. Besides, the Zika virus is much, much scarier.
The disease is one of the top 10 causes of death in the world. It currently infects roughly 1.5 billion people. But researchers from Cornell University are focusing on the critically important need to develop new drugs to fight TB.
Genetics, age, and hormone fluctuations play a role in women's migraines.
Studying how cells heal themselves potentially has a wide application in medical research. And for the last 100 years slicing a single cell into two equal parts has only been done by hand. But a young, observant scientist and her fellow Stanford University researchers have just developed a method that's 200 times faster than the current process.
There's new data to suggest that women with breast implants could receive an incorrect diagnosis for a heart attack when undergoing an electrocardiogram. Doctors could not say this with certainty, but they indicated that this could very well be the cause.
When statins and angioplasty aren't enough to prevent a heart attack, it may be possible to minimize damage to the heart by using a photosynthetic cyanobacterium. While still in the preliminary stages, research indicates that the oxygen produced by these non-pathogenic bugs could help keep the heart going.
The history of the field of microbiology may not be as long as other scientific areas, but it's just as interesting. After 100 years in print the Journal of Bacteriology is taking, what you might say, a walk down memory lane. It's highlighting the top 100 historical papers over the last century in its "Classic Spotlight" series.
Tans look healthy — even though they're not. A tan means sun exposure, which means an increased risk of skin cancer. But new research is pointing the way to getting the benefits of melanin, the tan-producing pigment, without exposure to UV radiation. The new technique works in mice, so maybe it will be the answer for humans, too.
As essential to scientific research as beakers, the sequence of an organism's genome is a staple in today's world of scientific experimentation. That means the sequencing and publication of more than 1,000 new bacterial genomes is akin to "making it rain" in the microbiology-research community.
When the recent publication of a paper in Nature Methods claimed that using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique may cause unexpected mutations to occur, you might say that produced a collective gasp in the scientific community. But those who discovered CRISPR-Cas9 are not taking this criticism lightly – and they're fighting back.