All creatures great and small: Sequencing the blue whale and Etruscan shrew genomes
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 19-Mar-2024 08:08 ET (19-Mar-2024 12:08 GMT/UTC)
The blue whale genome was published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, and the Etruscan shrew genome was published in the journal Scientific Data.
Research models using animal cell cultures can help navigate big biological questions, but these tools are only useful when following the right map.
“The genome is a blueprint of an organism,” says Yury Bukhman, first author of the published research and a computational biologist in the Ron Stewart Computational Group at the Morgridge Institute, an independent research organization that works in affiliation with the University of Wisconsin–Madison in emerging fields such as regenerative biology, metabolism, virology and biomedical imaging. “In order to manipulate cell cultures or measure things like gene expression, you need to know the genome of the species — it makes more research possible.”
Text nudges encouraging people to get the COVID-19 vaccine, which had proven effective in prior real-world field tests, are also effective at prompting people to get a booster. The key in both cases is to include in the text a sense of ownership in the dose awaiting them.
Some soil bacteria can acquire sets of genes that enable them to pump the heavy metal nickel out of their systems, a study has found. This enables the bacteria to not only thrive in otherwise toxic soils but help plants grow there as well. A research team pinpointed a set of genes in wild soil bacteria that allows them to do this in serpentine soils which have naturally high concentrations of toxic nickel. The genetic discovery could help inform future bioremediation efforts that seek to return plants to polluted soils.
A new study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin centers on an aetosaur suit of armor that has most of its major parts intact. The suit — called a carapace — is about 70% complete and covers each major region of the body. Reyes and his collaborators used the armor to identify the specimen as a new aetosaur species — which they named Garzapelta muelleri.
Rice engineers propose a new quantitative framework to account for and predict the impact of temperature on the curing speed of platinum-catalyzed silicone elastomers. The findings could maximize throughput and minimize waste in the manufacturing of components for soft robotics and wearables.
The $450,000 Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) grant from the National Science Foundation will support the enhancement and continuation of field monitoring and data sharing at two freshwater drinking water supply reservoirs in Roanoke, Virginia. The five-year grant will support three Virginia Tech researchers working to help better predict the future of ecosystems.
For the first time, load-bearing structures like bridges and shelters can be made with origami modules—versatile components that can fold compactly and adapt into different shapes—University of Michigan engineers have demonstrated.
Automated insulin dosing systems combine low-cost blood-glucose monitors with insulin pumps that use precision dosing to continuously regulate blood-sugar and hold it steady. Rice synthetic biologists have found a way to piggyback on the technology and make it universally applicable for the precision dosing of virtually any drug.
A research team at Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering tackled this challenge by developing a custom-built miniaturized chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system capable of observing and recording the growth of 2D molybdenum disulfide crystals in real time.
A rigorous analysis of numerous studies concludes that a part of the brain traditionally associated with movement is abnormal in children with developmental language impairments. The discovery has the potential to improve both the diagnosis and treatment of the language difficulties.