Apr 6, 2017 10:58 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 6, 2017 10:59 PM by C C.)
Science Reveals Yet Another Reason Octopuses and Squid Are So Weird
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/cephalopod-gene-editing/
EXCERPT: Octopuses are aliens living on Earth. They solve puzzles, use tools, and communicate with color. They also squirt ink, open jars, and occasionally pull a prank or two. Given their remarkable intelligence and cunning ways, it takes a lot to surprise the biologists who study these wonderful creatures and their equally weird cousins the squids and cuttlefish.
But when Stanford University geneticist Jin Billy Li heard about Joshua Rosenthal’s work on RNA editing in squid, his jaw dropped. That’s because the work, published today in the journal Cell, revealed that many cephalopods present a monumental exception to how living things use the information in DNA to make proteins. In nearly every other animal, RNA—the middleman in that process—faithfully transmits the message in the genes. But octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (but not their dumber relatives, the nautiluses) edit their RNA, changing the message that gets read out to make proteins.
In exchange for this remarkable adaptation, it appears these squishy, mysterious, and possibly conscious creatures might have given up the ability to evolve relatively quickly. Or, as the researchers put it, “positive selection of editing events slows down genome evolution.” More simply, these cephalopods don’t evolve quite like other animals. And that could one day lead to useful tools for humans....
How scientists explore our genome's 'dark matter'
http://www.futurity.org/genome-dark-matter-1394982-2/
EXCERPT: “Only a small fraction of our genome encodes instructions to make proteins that guide cellular activity,” says Tyler Klann, the biomedical engineering graduate student who led the work in Gersbach’s lab. “But more than 90 percent of the genetic variation in the human population that is associated with common disease falls outside of those genes. We set out to develop a technology to map this part of the genome and understand what it is doing....”
How artificial life spawned a billion-dollar industry
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN178168
EXCERPT: Scientists are getting closer to building life from scratch and technology pioneers are taking notice, with record sums moving into a field that could deliver novel drugs, materials, chemicals and even perfumes. Despite ethical and safety concerns, investors are attracted by synthetic biology's wide market potential and the plummeting cost of DNA synthesis, which is industrializing the writing of the genetic code that determines how organisms function. While existing biotechnology is already used to make medicines like insulin and genetically modified crops, synthesizing whole genes or genomes gives an opportunity for far more extensive changes....
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/cephalopod-gene-editing/
EXCERPT: Octopuses are aliens living on Earth. They solve puzzles, use tools, and communicate with color. They also squirt ink, open jars, and occasionally pull a prank or two. Given their remarkable intelligence and cunning ways, it takes a lot to surprise the biologists who study these wonderful creatures and their equally weird cousins the squids and cuttlefish.
But when Stanford University geneticist Jin Billy Li heard about Joshua Rosenthal’s work on RNA editing in squid, his jaw dropped. That’s because the work, published today in the journal Cell, revealed that many cephalopods present a monumental exception to how living things use the information in DNA to make proteins. In nearly every other animal, RNA—the middleman in that process—faithfully transmits the message in the genes. But octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (but not their dumber relatives, the nautiluses) edit their RNA, changing the message that gets read out to make proteins.
In exchange for this remarkable adaptation, it appears these squishy, mysterious, and possibly conscious creatures might have given up the ability to evolve relatively quickly. Or, as the researchers put it, “positive selection of editing events slows down genome evolution.” More simply, these cephalopods don’t evolve quite like other animals. And that could one day lead to useful tools for humans....
How scientists explore our genome's 'dark matter'
http://www.futurity.org/genome-dark-matter-1394982-2/
EXCERPT: “Only a small fraction of our genome encodes instructions to make proteins that guide cellular activity,” says Tyler Klann, the biomedical engineering graduate student who led the work in Gersbach’s lab. “But more than 90 percent of the genetic variation in the human population that is associated with common disease falls outside of those genes. We set out to develop a technology to map this part of the genome and understand what it is doing....”
How artificial life spawned a billion-dollar industry
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN178168
EXCERPT: Scientists are getting closer to building life from scratch and technology pioneers are taking notice, with record sums moving into a field that could deliver novel drugs, materials, chemicals and even perfumes. Despite ethical and safety concerns, investors are attracted by synthetic biology's wide market potential and the plummeting cost of DNA synthesis, which is industrializing the writing of the genetic code that determines how organisms function. While existing biotechnology is already used to make medicines like insulin and genetically modified crops, synthesizing whole genes or genomes gives an opportunity for far more extensive changes....
