but the team discovered that many of the same genes that drive penis growth in ducks continued to be expressed strongly in chickens.
and on sequencing viral genes. In August, a team led by Douglas  Marthaler, a scientist at the University of Minnesota s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, will publish the sequence of a virus genome taken from a Colorado farm.
But a global analysis of 455 crop wild relatives has found that 54%are underrepresented in gene bank collections
 but they are threatened because of habitat loss as well as gene flow from domesticated plants through cross-pollination, says Paul Gepts, a plant breeder at the University of California,
The team then spent two years scouring gene banks, herbaria and museums to document what is housed currently in collections
Ehsan Dulloo, head of conservation at Bioversity International, an agricultural-research organization in Rome, says that securing samples for placement in gene banks is important to protect species from destruction by natural calamities or war, for example.
Myriad back in court One month after the US Supreme court invalidated gene patents held by Myriad Genetics of Salt lake city, Utah,
the company has sued two competitors for infringing different patents on tests for the cancer-related genes BRCA1 and BRCA2.
then filed another the following day against Gene by Gene in Houston, Texas. Both firms had announced that they would provide BRCA testing in the wake of the Supreme court ruling (see Nature 498,281-282;
"Once we release these genes into the field, we should just assume that they are going to stay in the environment
which swap genes to form versions that can spread to chickens and to humans. Better surveillance of Chinese bird populations is needed to monitor the emergence of dangerous viruses such as H7n9,
The scientists think that those viruses swapped genes in domestic ducks before spreading to chickens, where they traded genes with a common chicken virus, H9n2.
A gene with a role in horn growth explains his fertility and his longevity, finds a study of sheep on a remote Scottish isle.
the genes underlying the trait should have become ubiquitous, says Susan Johnston, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK,
Two years ago, Johnston s group reported that a single gene, RXFP2, explains horn variability in the sheep (S. Â E. Â Johnston et al.
) One version of the gene, Ho+,is linked to large horns; another allele, Hop, is associated with small ones.
Johnston s team related the RXFP2 genes of 1, 750 sheep to three factors: horn size, reproductive success and lifespan (S.  E. Johnston et  al.
scientists will need to study the gene: in humans and mice, it is involved in sexual development and bone density.
In 1999, they finally produced a tasty variety that contained the Vf defence gene, bred in from an unappetizing relative.
Even armed with modern breeding techniques and 15 Â known defence genes in the apple family
instead used a gene gun to fire DNA-coated gold particles into plant cells. Some of that DNA is incorporated then into the genome.
is trying to use genes from grape varieties to engineer a wine grape that is resistant to Pierce s disease a condition caused by a bacterium that has made it difficult to grow wine grapes in the state.
even though these offspring no longer contain the engineered gene. Mackenzie thinks that the transgene triggered an epigenetic change:
"The flip side is that they are so powerful you can engineer multiple genes at one time.
He notes that Agrobacterium inserts genes more efficiently than the gene-gun method. Although zinc-fingers are appealing for their specificity
in spite of the fact that the genes he introduced came from other apples. This was used because he Agrobacterium to insert the genes it did not matter to regulators that no trace of Agrobacterium DNA remained in his plants.
Schouten is perplexed. If he had used a gene gun, he would have inserted DNA haphazardly and in a manner more likely to damage other sites in the genome yet this remains the unregulated method."
"To me, this is a very strange system, he says
Genetically modified crops pass benefits to weedsa genetic-modification technique used widely to make crops herbicide resistant has been shown to confer advantages on a weedy form of rice, even in the absence of the herbicide.
Missouri typically involves inserting genes into a crop s genome to boost EPSP-synthase production.
The genes are derived usually from bacteria that infect plants. The extra EPSP synthase lets the plant withstand the effects of glyphosate.
Biotechnology labs have attempted also to use genes from plants rather than bacteria to boost EPSP-synthase production
creating second-generation hybrids that were genetically identical to one another except in the number of copies of the gene encoding EPSP synthase.
"If the EPSP-synthase gene gets into the wild rice species, their genetic diversity, which is really important to conserve,
 The study also challenges the public perception that genetically modified crops carrying extra copies of their own genes are safer than those containing genes from microorganisms."
Myriad, a medical diagnostics company in Salt lake city, Utah, sued Ambry in July for infringing patents that Myriad holds on tests for cancer-associated mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.
Ambry replied that Myriad s patent claims were invalid in light of a June ruling by the US Supreme court that human genes cannot be patented (see Nature 498,281-282;
CIAT geneticists are trying to isolate the brachialactone genes, to introduce them into crops such as wheat or rice.
Help might also come from genes that encourage faster uptake of nitrogen. Arcadia Biosciences, based in Davis,
California, has taken a gene for an enzyme called alanine amino  transferase from barley and incorporated it into other crops to encourage them to absorb nitrogen before microbes do.
African rice with this gene produced the same yield as controls, using only half the fertilizer.
the researchers found that bacteria from humans had more diverse collections of resistance genes than those in local livestock.
This indicates that local livestock cannot be the sole source of the resistance genes found in the strains found in humans.
he explains that it does not eliminate the possibility that resistance genes from local farms
Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK, says that the study clarifies how pathogens and drug-resistance genes spread."
We ve mobilized the genes from algae that make some of these oils and put them into oilseed crops.
and expansion of flowering plants by providing an extra copy of each gene for evolution to play around with to yield new functions,
The origin of flowers the defining features of angiosperms might be explained by a collection of genes that appeared
About one-quarter of the genes involved in flowering lack obvious counterparts in the genomes of gymnosperms,
and study families of genes in other plants, including crops, he says. Depamphilis team also surveyed the genetic diversity of Amborella,
and researchers are experimenting with putting its resistance genes into the Cavendish. The resulting transgenic specimens have been in field trials for 18 Â months on contaminated ground in Australia,
and introduce into a crop a single gene for a coveted trait such as salt tolerance,
researchers can use a slew of interacting genes that comes pre-integrated in a living organism,
but progress in introducing new genes through genetic manipulation has been slow. Despite decades of research, only one drought-tolerant genetically modified crop has been approved in the United states:
which expresses a stress-response gene from bacteria. Although symbiotic plant-microbe relationships such as those of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in the roots of legumes have been known for many decades,
and which are crucial to figuring out the origins of gene sequences and the timing of those events, are flawed all,
Worobey and his colleagues analysed more than 80,000 gene sequences from flu viruses isolated from humans, birds, horses,
pigs and bats using a model they developed to map evolutionary relationships between viruses from different host species. The branched tree that resulted showed that the genes of the deadly 1918 pandemic virus are of avian origin.
instead that the viral genes circulated in humans and swine for at least 2 to 15 years before the pandemic and combined to make the lethal virus. Gavin Smith, an evolutionary biologist at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical school at the National University of Singapore,
notes that it identified an avian relationship for two genes in the 1918 virus, but not for six genes,
as the latest study has done. Worobey's study is highly persuasive, says Oliver Pybus, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, UK."
bringing an influx of genes (see Wolf island). But project scientists say that the opposite is more likely:
and provided a rare boost of genes that doubled the population by the mid-2000s.
John Vucetich/Rolf Petersonjohn Vucetich, co-leader of the project and an ecologist at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, says that the need for an influx of genes is becoming urgent.
while any male offspring will carry the deadly gene just as their fathers did. Over time this should bring down local olive fruit fly population dramatically.
The added genes are similar to the ones that appear in Oxitec's mosquitos which the company has tested in Brazil bringing down one town's dengue-fever-carrying mosquito population by 96 percent.
The group is concerned also about GM maggots living for some time in olives before their genes kill them off.
The deadly genes should only work in flies unlike pesticides which affect many insect species including ones people may be interested in protecting such as pollinators o
A new study found that a single gene called callee oocyan is responsible for the odd coloration of these blue chicken eggs.
This EAV-HP retrovirus is responsible for inserting that weird gene the one that turns the chicken eggs blue.
-but the changed genes simply have been passed down from bird to bird-essentially creating a new breed.
Therefore their blue egg gene originated in South america not England d
#Pollinating Bees Are The Pesticide Deliverymen Of The Futurehere's another reason to pay attention to dwindling bee populations:
Mutation breeding is considered not genetic engineering which puts genes from one species into another species. Genetic engineering can be a quick
In addition the weird biology of bacteria means that they are able to easily share genes with one another further spreading antibiotic resistance.
<i>-and therefore imprinting the urge to eat grease in our genes -<i>.Here's a thought.
and common sense you'll quickly find yourself out of the gene pool: Science without religion is lame religion without science is blind.
Using animals as a method of seed dispersal is actually a useful form of mutualism âÂ#Âthe plants get to spread their genes
During meiosis combinations of the parents'genes are broken up and reconfigured into novel arrangements in the resulting sperm and egg cells creating new gene combinations that might be advantageous.
Shouldn't natural selection favor animals that forgo draining displays and genetic roulette and simply clone themselves?
My genes are awesome. Mating displays during periods which coencide with elevated testosterone do have the effect of removing the veil the immune system places over the genes
but that just improves the method of selection from the same group of flamboyent animals.
Chromosomes can be thought of as beads of genes on a string of DNA and in an organism capable of having sex the sister chromosomes (one from each parent) are separated off
-but also that a great gene arising on a chromosome with loads of rubbish genes won't be found guilty by association.
That is to say the great gene won't be erased immediately from record with the death of the organism-as it would be with an asexual organism with only a single copy of a chromosome
and no good genes on another chromosome able to compensate the bad ones. Obviously no one really knows exactly what'nature's thinking'is
According to a study in this week's PLOS Genetics it's not the genes that matter it's how they're expressed.
University college London's Judith Mank and her colleagues found dominant and subordinate males had profound differences in the way their genes were expressed.
Compared to their subordinate counterparts the attractive dominant males showed higher expression of masculine genes predominantly found in males
and lower expression for genes mostly found in females. So genetically they have more masculine traits and fewer female traits.
or squash gene for Vitamin a in rice is to them a sinister act. For countless generations civilization has used selective breeding
There are technologies like terminator-genes but those are equally dangerous.@@Wonder you have to be a farmer in the Philippines
and bacteria to deliver the genes into the corn so that it can produce Delta Endotoxin.
For this reason GMOS that have the Bt gene are compatible with biological control programs
if the modified gene can have complications 1000x generations down the line. Why would the government pass a bill to protect Monsanto
Just add a few beef genes here and there another bag full of bread genes. Coffee-sized machines 3d-print algae foodstuffs-precursor so we can handle the texture-hurdle. z=textstyle-frac {3}
For example fish genes have been placed in tomatoes human genes in tobacco bacteria in corn and viruses in squash and fruit.
If an inkjet could print genes Boland thought perhaps the same hardware could print other biomaterials.
and they can be used to deliver genes and growth factors to developing cells. But as in the case of polymers they can introduce foreign materials into the body and cause inflammation.
Lactase persistence--the gene that allows about a third of adults to drink milk without major digestive pains--tends to break down geographically as you can see in this infographic from Nature's history of milk tolerance.
but perhaps it's related to our inate will to protect/promote our own genes at the expense of strangers we don't need.
Inactivation of taste genes causes male sterilityhttp://www. mybiologica. com/4640/science-en/inactivation-of-taste-genes-causes-male-sterility. html...Scientists
By looking at the comparison between domestic and wild strains they can tell which specific genes are active
and trace the way individual genes interact to affect the whole fruit. One species for example is found in the desert
and has accelerated genes to tolerate extreme heat and lack of water. Theoretically the comparison could allow genetic biologists to pick out exactly which genes they want to splice to have desired the effect on the tomato.
This is a huge step forward; crossbreeding of wild and domestic tomatoes is common but kind of a crapshoot since previously the relationship between genes wasn't as well understood.
This may help with future efforts to breed new traits into tomato or other crops said Julin Maloof of the University of California Davis who was one of the lead researchers on the paper.
This was caused the sort by something in my genes. The doctors said that I had probably been born with a bad pancreas at the start.
I suspect my ridiculously good health is more good gene's and a good mental attitude than anything the scientific community can quantify.
#European Bee Sperm bank Will Improve U s. Bee Gene Poolhere's a new idea for protecting the declining honeybee population in the U s. One team of scientists is importing European honeybee semen for fun
An injection of European sperm will diversify the American bee gene pool however which may lead to healthier American insects.
For decades the bans protected U s. bees from the 1922 parasite but they made the U s. bee gene pool small.
What they found was that a critical gene called Bmp4 switches on causing developing genitals to wither away.
In other birds like ducks and emus that gene stays switched off allowing their penises to grow fully.
Behaviorally worthy males stop passing on their genes and the young suffer the species dies out.
It's like where in the world are the genes we're looking for? Shannon Pinson a USDA geneticist tells Popular Science.
Once scientists find the genes that are responsible for mineral levels the next step in their research they'll hand that information over to plant breeders.
Breeders create new varieties of rice the old-fashioned way by reproducing only the plants with the genes they want.
Even identifying and targeting specific genes is a well-known technique that researchers have honed since the 1980s.
however because it involves many genes. It also involves many interacting minerals. You don't want to increase the calcium in rice for example only to decrease magnesium at the same time.
So cooked rice texture which is controlled by one gene came first. Then resistance to a fungus called blast.
there is a gene that differentiates the 17-year cicadas from the 13-year cicadas but says Gilbert we don't really have any way to see what the hell they're doing down there for 17 years.
Human eggs and Human cells worked just as poorly as human cell and rabbit eggs right down to specific genes.
We can even screen the entire genome in great gulps of DNA at a time looking for the signature of rapid selection in our genes.
and the ferocious lion by culling the most dangerous maneaters from their gene pool for thousands upon thousands of years.
and their genes must die with them. That being said humans can adapt to higher altitudes just like humans can adapt to not get seasick easily
Researchers are making headway in mapping the genes that help bees overcome these obstacles including
which genes help them safely break down pesticides. Now researchers have identified several compounds that help turn on those genes.
They're present in honey something commercial bees don't get to keep--their food supply is taken for human use
Wenfu Mao and colleagues found three compounds in honey that increase the expression of a gene that helps bees metabolize pesticides.
In our world evolutionary developmental biology had to challenge the simpleminded gene-centered Darwinism of the 1960s to generate a more sophisticated paradigm.
Humans also carry epigenetic tags that may affect their behavior Scientists found methyl groups attached to a stress-hormone-receptor gene in child-abuse victims who committed suicide.
Genes: Epigenetic tags such as methyl groups determine how much of a gene is expressed or whether the gene is expressed at all.
Proteins: The tags also dictate how pieces of genes are assembled into an mrna transcript which eventually determines the type of protein made from that gene.
A protein produced in a nurse bee will look different and serve a different function than one produced in a forager.
Queens per Hive: 1workers per Queen: 10000ã¢Â#Â0000average Lifespan of a Worker bee in Months:
3managed Honeybee Colonies in 2011 in the U s.:2. 49 Millionsee the rest of the articles from our 2013 How It Works section here
It's called survival of the fittest who then pass on their genes to surviving generations. If those birds are quicker--maybe by shorter wings
and pass their mutated genes to their offspring adding new traits into the gene pool.
and humans they mapped the DNA sequences on an evolutionary family tree for primates going back 60 million years estimating what genes could have looked like for extinct primate ancestors.
We learned the genes in the body and now have a good understanding of how they cause disease
and gene silencing/overexpression to treat these. Stop being paranoid scientists are not elitists...We are little kids who still have the passion to ask why not.
While thereã¢Â#Â#s little doubt that a personã¢Â#Â#s experiences and learned behaviors have a huge impact on their disposition it is also now widely accepted that genes
When we translate material things from genes to jet planes into numbers we can analyze and manipulate them far more easily.
Did you know the domesticated watermelon has about as many genes as you do? In 2012 genome researchers sequenced the DNA of an unborn human baby the western lowland gorilla fruits and grains and livestock.
so that they have genes from a soil bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis. The genes produce crystalline chemicals that kill insect larvae when they eat it.
A larva that chows down on a Bt-crystal-producing GM plant soon stops eating.
The sequences of parent plants'genes represent some of the companies'most important intellectual property.
To make Arctic apples biologists took genes from Granny smith and Golden delicious varieties modified them to suppress the enzyme that causes browning
Biologists also introduce genes to make plants pest-and herbicide-resistant; those traits dominate the more than 430 million acres of GMO crops that have already been planted globally.
Humans have been manipulating the genes of crops for millennia by selectively breeding plants with desirable traits.
They do this by either using bacteria to deliver the new genetic material or by shooting tiny DNA-coated metal pellets into plant cells with a gene gun.
or a toxin or if it is going to turn another gene off says Peggy G. Lemaux a plant biologist at the University of California Berkeley.
Genes that help wild plants survive might spread whereas those that say boost Vitamin a content might remain at low levels
Traditionally cheesemakers use rennet from the lining of cow stomachs to get their chymosin ut an estimated 80 to 90 percent of hard cheeses in the U s. are made with bacteria modified with the rennet-producing cow gene.
Today's most common GMO technology RECOMBINANT DNA inserts genes into a plant's cells via bacteria or specialized delivery tools but it involves some trial and error.
A new method called gene editing uses enzymes to snip out a specific bit of DNA to either delete it
Gene editing may also provide fodder for fresh controversy. Current GMO methods leave a trace behind
or example a bit of the DNA from bacterium used to insert new genes. The enzymes used in gene editing don't leave such a fingerprint so future genetically modified plants will be harder to detect with tests.
This article originally appeared in the July 2014 issue of Popular Science. Note (7/17/2014 6:
mapping the birds gene sequences in order to determine the best approach for getting those good heat-resistant genes into American chickens without taking along all the genetic baggage as Schmidt calls it that s unnecessary to duplicate in the hybrid chickens.
Once Schmidt and his colleagues have deciphered and analyzed the genetic codes of these hardy African
whose genes are similar to those found in closely related unmodified animals. So instead of giving pigs mouse genes scientists could make domestic pigs with genes normally found in wild pigs.
The end result would be engineered pigs that farmers could have made through generations of careful breeding geneticists argue.
I don't think those who don't wish to eat GM foods will find GM pigs-with-pig-genes any better than pigs with mouse genes.
The filmmakers of Jupiter Ascending augmented human characters with animal genes to make them more physically imposing.
At other points it s a naturally occurring hiccup like the X-Gene that allowed superhumans to manipulate brain waves or magnetic fields.
Genes can mutate spontaneously or be manipulated in the lab to create new traits. Take for example the ability of most adult humans to process lactose in dairy products.
and using genes from its host trees hich would explain why it mimics the nearest leaf
and Blood Institute team specially engineered its pigs to have some human genes and to lack some pig genes.
The researchers also gave their baboons drugs to suppress their immune systems. Human patients take immunosuppressant drugs
Second they inserted genes that code for the enzymes into the DNA of E coli (chosen
if space affects which genes the staple expresses RIA Novosti reports. Updated February 3: Added comments from Bruce Bugbee c
The technique called RNA interference or RNAI works by creating snippets of RNA that correspond to genes in the target species say corn rootworm.
When these chunks of genetic material enter the rootworm perhaps after being sprayed onto the crop the animal reacts to this RNA snippet as it would an invading virus. This prompts a response that attacks and silences the corresponding gene in the host's own DNA.
If this gene is necessary for the organism's survival the theory goes it dies.
but it also helps reveal a few interesting secrets hiding within the pepper's genes. Because peppers are not so different from their cousins the potato
and we even know the gene that could turn it on and off Van Deynze tells Popular Science.
That gene is called capsaicin synthase. With the genome the team of researchers learned more about capsaicin synthase
The study suggests that the pungency from peppers was evolved through new genes by unequal duplication of existing genes.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011