Aug 4, 2019 05:31 AM
After you die, these genes come to life
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2...ter-death/
EXCERPT: . . . Peter Noble, a former professor at the University of Alabama ... helped [to] discover that long-dormant genes can spring into action hours or even days after an organism dies. The idea that genes would activate after an organism’s death was unheard of, so the researchers wrote it off as a mistake with their instrumentation. But repeated tests, in fish and then in mice, continued to bear out the impossible: genes activating hours, or even days, after an organism died.
[...] The scientists’ findings were met with skepticism, until a group of researchers led by Roderic Guigó at Barcelona’s Centre for Genomic Regulation also found post-mortem gene activity, this time in humans. “We were saved when the group from the Barcelona genome institute covered the paper on humans, because they … proved the same thing,” says Noble. Guigó and his team were studying gene regulation by analyzing tissues from people who donated their bodies after death. Their work was already underway when Noble’s paper was published, so they weren’t surprised by his team’s findings. “It was more or less what we were seeing,” says Guigó.
[...] But while this discovery opens up new possibilities for medical science, the biggest question posed by the research—why some of our genes activate after we die—remains a mystery. Noble thinks clues may lie in the kinds of genes that are reanimating. Though none of the zombie genes seem to make any physical changes after death, many of them are related to activities that are normally closely regulated or inhibited. This includes the gene that tells cells to produce the beginnings of a spinal column — once you’ve already got a spine, you no longer need to grow a new one. Other genes that activate after death are related to cancers. Perhaps in the absence of other genes that normally inhibit them, these genes seize the opportunity to reactivate, like teens throwing a party when their parents are out of town. (MORE)
Darwin’s Ideas About How Life Arose on Earth May Be Right After All
https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet...180972790/
EXCERPT: In a new book titled Assembling Life: How Can Life Begin on Earth and Other Habitable Planets, David Deamer from the University of California in Santa Cruz argues that the critical chemical reactions that led to life’s appearance on Earth required fresh water rather than seawater. [...] In other words, Charles Darwin’s notion of a “little warm pond” as the cradle of life may be true after all.
[...] Even if we can’t yet answer how life originated, it would help a lot to know what environmental conditions were necessary, because that would tell us where else to search in the solar system. If life begins more easily in deep oceans, we should explore the ice-covered oceans of Europa or Enceladus. If it originated in hydrothermal pools on land, as Deamer proposes, then continents are required, and life is more likely to have developed on Mars and perhaps Venus. If, in addition, strong tidal forces—which our own Moon must have exerted on our young Earth—are needed, then Earth may actually be the only planet in our Solar System where conditions were right for biology. (MORE)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2...ter-death/
EXCERPT: . . . Peter Noble, a former professor at the University of Alabama ... helped [to] discover that long-dormant genes can spring into action hours or even days after an organism dies. The idea that genes would activate after an organism’s death was unheard of, so the researchers wrote it off as a mistake with their instrumentation. But repeated tests, in fish and then in mice, continued to bear out the impossible: genes activating hours, or even days, after an organism died.
[...] The scientists’ findings were met with skepticism, until a group of researchers led by Roderic Guigó at Barcelona’s Centre for Genomic Regulation also found post-mortem gene activity, this time in humans. “We were saved when the group from the Barcelona genome institute covered the paper on humans, because they … proved the same thing,” says Noble. Guigó and his team were studying gene regulation by analyzing tissues from people who donated their bodies after death. Their work was already underway when Noble’s paper was published, so they weren’t surprised by his team’s findings. “It was more or less what we were seeing,” says Guigó.
[...] But while this discovery opens up new possibilities for medical science, the biggest question posed by the research—why some of our genes activate after we die—remains a mystery. Noble thinks clues may lie in the kinds of genes that are reanimating. Though none of the zombie genes seem to make any physical changes after death, many of them are related to activities that are normally closely regulated or inhibited. This includes the gene that tells cells to produce the beginnings of a spinal column — once you’ve already got a spine, you no longer need to grow a new one. Other genes that activate after death are related to cancers. Perhaps in the absence of other genes that normally inhibit them, these genes seize the opportunity to reactivate, like teens throwing a party when their parents are out of town. (MORE)
Darwin’s Ideas About How Life Arose on Earth May Be Right After All
https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet...180972790/
EXCERPT: In a new book titled Assembling Life: How Can Life Begin on Earth and Other Habitable Planets, David Deamer from the University of California in Santa Cruz argues that the critical chemical reactions that led to life’s appearance on Earth required fresh water rather than seawater. [...] In other words, Charles Darwin’s notion of a “little warm pond” as the cradle of life may be true after all.
[...] Even if we can’t yet answer how life originated, it would help a lot to know what environmental conditions were necessary, because that would tell us where else to search in the solar system. If life begins more easily in deep oceans, we should explore the ice-covered oceans of Europa or Enceladus. If it originated in hydrothermal pools on land, as Deamer proposes, then continents are required, and life is more likely to have developed on Mars and perhaps Venus. If, in addition, strong tidal forces—which our own Moon must have exerted on our young Earth—are needed, then Earth may actually be the only planet in our Solar System where conditions were right for biology. (MORE)