Animal Biotechnology
Birds come from ‘fastest-evolving’ dinosaurs
If almost all dinosaurs had feathers, as recent studies have indicated, what determined which ones would evolve into birds? According to new ...
Gene responsible for echolocation identified in dolphins and bats
Echolocation is used by both bats and dolphins, allowing them to navigate the world with the use of sound. Now, ...
Turing description of interacting molecules explains how fingers and toes form
Your arms and toes began as tiny buds that sprouted from your sides when you were just a four-week-old embryo ...
Politics alert: Is Obama Administration holding up approval process for AquaBounty GM salmon?
The mood at AquaBounty Technologies a year ago was buoyant. Regulators had released a draft assessment of the company’s genetically ...
Reproducing evolutionary changes with teeth
To study evolutionary morphings, scientists often look at teeth, which are well preserved and thus well represented in the fossil ...
Temporary mutations may allow organisms to adapt to sudden changes in environment
Scientists from the Duke University School of Medicine say that they discovered that microorganisms can use a temporary silencing of drug targets, ...
Prospects of surviving climate change not so bleak for some species
Scientists believe some species, like the Drosophila birchii rainforest fly, may be able to evolve and adapt to the effects of climate ...
Can we regulate gene editing without killing it?
CRISPR and other gene-editing methods, plus gene drives, are suddenly here and now. They offer unprecedented possibilities for genetic modification ...
Epigenetics can drive cancer, may be target for new treatments
The first direct evidence that epigenetics alone -- tweaks to gene expression -- can drive cancer in mice demonstrates that ...
Can scientists save the declining New England cottontail from extinction?
Scientists with the NH Agricultural Experiment Station are working to restore New Hampshire and Maine's only native rabbit after new ...
Climate change driving diversity in seal population
Although climate change continues to stir up opportunities and challenges for animals across the world, new research published today in Nature shows the ups and ...
Promising new diabetes treatment overcomes negative side effects
In Type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system destroys the cells that produce insulin, leaving your body unable to make ...
Raising the dead: ‘De-extinction’ science could lead to rescue of threatened wildlife
Philip Seddon, zoologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, addresses the fears of regenerating species as a tactic ...
Elephants can attribute superior smell to genes
Compared with 13 other mammal species studied, African elephants have the most genes related to smell: 2,000. That’s the most ever ...
Are ‘gene drives’ scary or promising?
Perhaps you've followed that teeny tiny controversy around genetically modified foods, the “GMO” debate. Or you watched the fierce back-and-forth over whether ...
Video: Genetic engineering allows MIT researchers to implant false memories
Can you install a false memory in the brain? Researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shown ...
Indonesian state won’t release GE mosquitos to fight disease
The Malacca government does not intend to release “genetically modified organism” (GMO) mosquitoes to control Aedes although the state recorded ...
Transgenic, sex-swapped algae reveal potential genetic ‘master switch’ in evolution of the sexes
An experiment in making sex-swapped algae has unveiled a genetic "master switch" in the evolution of sex differences, one of ...
GM mosquitoes could breed to extinction, leaving malaria parasite no host
Kill the mosquito and you kill the disease. That is the usual approach to controlling malaria. And if done properly, ...
Superchicken? Researchers turn to genetics to breed global warming tolerant fowls
For all the concern about how climate change may affect people in cities, people in cars, people and their flood ...
To acquire all blood diet, vampire bats lost genes for bitter taste
Vampire bats have lousy taste. But they’re not bitter about it. According to research published today in Proceedings of the ...
Birds evolved pattern recognition to spot cuckoo’s planted eggs
New pattern recognition software has shed light on the evolutionary arms race between cuckoos and the birds they target. Cuckoos ...
GM meat in development but politics, consumer concerns pose high hurdles
There are no genetically engineered animals sold for human consumption right now. The only candidate that's anywhere close, AquaBounty's fast-growing ...
Enter the ‘grolar bear’: Warming habitats means chances for inter-species mating
In the last 40 years, the Arctic has warmed by about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, more than twice the overall global ...
Second mosquito genome targets dengue and yellow fever
Virginia Tech entomologists have developed a chromosome map for about half of the genome of the mosquito Aedes agypti, the ...
Little genetic variation alongside human behavior at fault for passenger pigeon extinction
The passenger pigeon is the poster species for human-caused extinction. From a population of between three and five billion in ...
AquaBounty GE ‘super’ salmon on verge of approval–Should it be feared or welcomed?
Years ago scientists made a genetic modification to the DNA of an Atlantic salmon to create a fast growing fish ...
