Engineered plants and bacteria could mine platinum

Fields of native flowers may soon become high tech nanoparticle factories if a team of scientists in the United Kingdom succeeds in using plants to extract soil pollutants which bacteria will then process into useful materials.

Some plants, the flower Alyssum for example, naturally draw certain chemicals, such as arsenic and platinum, from the soil. The plants concentrate the chemicals in their tissues, which makes them naturals at reclaiming polluted land.

“We have access to a global dataset of plant/crop genetics and capabilities that will allow us to identify suitable native species. One key aspect is to ensure that no impacts on localized biodiversity occur,” said Kiwan.

View the original article here: The Future’s Platinum: Flower Power


Humans are ‘evolvable’ now more than ever

In the most massive study of genetic variation yet, researchers estimated the age of more than one million variants, or changes to our DNA code, found across human populations. The vast majority proved to be quite young. The chronologies tell a story of evolutionary dynamics in recent human history, a period characterized by both narrow reproductive bottlenecks and sudden, enormous population growth.

The evolutionary dynamics of these features resulted in a flood of new genetic variation, accumulating so fast that natural selection hasn’t caught up yet. As a species, we are freshly bursting with the raw material of evolution.

“Most of the mutations that we found arose in the last 200 generations or so. There hasn’t been much time for random change or deterministic change through natural selection,” said geneticist Joshua Akey of the University of Washington, co-author of the Nov. 28 Nature study. “We have a repository of all this new variation for humanity to use as a substrate. In a way, we’re more evolvable now than at any time in our history.

View the original article here: Human Evolution Enters an Exciting New Phase

GMO scare: “A lot of hype with little substance”

As I have said before, people have a right to eat whatever they want—organic, vegan, gluten-free, soy-based (I have no problem with soy but really prefer meat.), local or omnivorous. And if folks want to research every product they buy to determine if it has transgenic properties, then I guess they have the right to do that.

And if an organization has an issue with a product, any product, I agree that it has the right, perhaps even the responsibility, to alert the public. However, and this is a big however, when an organization determines that a product is bad and decides to turn other people against it, they should offer some facts to support the reasoning behind the boycott.

View the original article here: GMO scare is a lot of hype with little substance

EU rejects Seralini report linking GM maize to cancer

The EU’s food safety agency definitively rejected Wednesday a bombshell French report linking genetically modified corn to cancer, saying it failed to meet “acceptable scientific standards.”

“Serious defects in the design and methodology of a paper by Seralini et al. mean it does not meet acceptable scientific standards,” the European Food Safety Authority said in a statement.

View the original article here: EU rejects French report linking GM maize to cancer

Africa caught between US and European GMO politics

African countries, Tanzania inclusive, are increasingly getting entangled between two conflicting giants on genetically modified organisms (GMO) issues, and now need serious political will to make decisions.

Key development partners of the continent; the US ardently supports the GMOs while Europe vehemently opposes them. Observers say the situation calls for patriotic African scientists to come up with the truth and help Africans make informed decisions on the matter.

View the original article here: How Africa is entangled in US, Europe’s GMOs politics

Wheat genome decoded, scientists hope for improved food security

Scientists have unlocked key parts of the complex genetic code of wheat, one of the world’s most important crops, which could help improve food security. The team hopes the data will accelerate the development of varieties more resilient to stresses, such as disease and drought, that cause crops to fail.

View the original article here: Wheat genome’s key parts unlocked in new study

GM corn in Mexico: Attack on the heart of maize biodiversity

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Mexico, the homeland of corn and cradle of its genetic diversity, is waiting with baited breath for an important decision that could seriously compromise its agricultural biodiversity. Since 2009, when [Mexico] dropped [a] decade-long moratorium on GMOs, 177 authorizations have already been granted for sowing transgenic corn in Mexico. Now the country is waiting for the outcome of a case whose dimensions and potential impact make it significantly more serious.

“Corn’s genetic heritage is an intangible asset for all of humanity,” said Carlo Petrini, Slow Food’s president. “We must avoid it being put at risk to further the private interests of certain multinationals. We hope that the Mexican government follows the precautionary principle adopted by Europe and other countries, including recently Kenya.”

View the original article here: Attack on the Heart of Biodiversity

Researchers create a fly to study how a normal cell turns cancerous

The wing of a fruit fly may hold the key to unraveling the genetic and molecular events that transform a normal cell into a cancerous one. The study, conducted on Drosophila melanogaster by scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and led by ICREA researcher Marco Milán, has reproduced each of the steps known to take place when a healthy cell turns cancerous. The researchers have thus provided an inexpensive and effective model that will allow the scientific community to scrutinize the genes and molecules involved in each step. Given that the vast majority of genes in Drosophila are conserved in mice and humans, the results obtained may also lead researchers to perform similar studies in more clinically relevant models. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS) has published the study online this week.

“This has allowed us to propose something that hasn’t yet been possible to study in depth and that now should be taken into serious consideration. Is genomic instability the cause of tumorigenesis?” says Milán.

View the original article here: Researchers create a fly to study how a normal cell turns cancerous – HealthCanal.com

Bioethics expert warns against GM babies plan

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British proposals to create genetically modified babies with three or four biological parents should be rejected, a new report says.

The report, written by bioethics expert Dr Calum MacKellar, says the techniques that are being discussed may carry medical risks for children, and for future generations.

Those in favour of the plans say the aim is to avoid mitochondrial diseases being passed from mother to child. But Dr MacKellar says alternative ways of doing that are already being pursued by scientists and they are far less controversial.

View the original article here: Bioethics expert warns against GM babies plan – The Christian Institute

DNA sequencing detects cancer-related chromosome changes

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and elsewhere have demonstrated that they can directly detect cancer-related chromosomal alterations in patient blood samples by sequencing cell-free DNA without prior knowledge of alterations present in the actual tumor.

“Our new approach identifies both rearrangements and chromosomal arm alterations directly in patient plasma with no previous interrogation of tumor DNA,” said Rebecca Leary, a post-doctoral researcher at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center’s Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics.

View the original article here: Cancer-related Chromosomal Changes Detected by Blood-based DNA Sequencing

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