I can’t believe that just a few months ago, we were learning how to serial dilute our samples and trying to look for a phage. This semester has been so enriching- from learning how to use DNA Master to going through the research process and developing our independent project. Our group has worked on comparing certain genes between all the known Arthrobacter genomes. It was amazing to realize how well everything came together in the end last week, when we were compiling and synthesizing our data for the final presentation. We started out having so many questions about where to start and how to gather data, but learned so much during the entire process. Good job to all the other groups on great projects as well!

Birds in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, a city in Ukraine which was the site of the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, are adapting to and benefiting from long-term exposure to radiation. The explosion that occurred in 1986 resulted in large quantities of radioactive particles to remain in the atmosphere, as well as numerous other environmental consequences. Ecologists have found that with increasing background radiation, the birds’ body condition and glutathione levels increased and oxidative stress and DNA damage decreased. These results are important, as they explain to us more about different species’ ability to adapt to different environments that have been sites of environmental catastrophes. Here is the link to the article-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140424223057.htm

I found this interesting article on the Economist, and thought I’d share. A group of virus-hunting scientists thawed a 32,000-year-old slab of Siberian permafrost and discovered a virus that infects a species of amoeba. While an average virus has 9,000 bases, this virus (named Mimivirus) has more than 1m bases in its genome. It is also huge physically – 600 nm across. Scientists claim that even though this virus is enormous, it is not very dangerous to people/humans. The full article link is- http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21598612-exotic-giant-virus-thawed-russian-tundra-siberia-strain

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21597881-homo-sapiens-became-black-beat-cancer-skinny-skin-colour

This article explains one possible reason why humans have darker skin than chimpanzees (after humans and chimps parted ways). Because of evolutionary pressures, human skin was almost always black. This may be due to the role of melanin in black skin. Melanin helps absorb ultraviolet light, prevents DNA damage and protects mutations, protects against skin cancer. Interesting read!

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/heartbeats-help-people-see

I thought this article was so interesting. Everything is connected! This article highlights this very fact. According to this article from Nature Neuroscience, each heartbeat creates a blip of neural activity, and this helps us better detect things in the world. Another theme that is talked about in this article is how all bodily functions have some kind of an effect on the brain. Enjoy!

It seemed like just yesterday that we were struggling to learn how to annotate a gene. It’s safe to say that we have come a long way! Our group decided to split our portion into two. Bethany and I annotated the first 12 genes plus 2 tRNAS, and Jeremy and Chloe annotated the rest of the gene assigned to our group. The main thing Bethany and I had a hard time with was a huge gap (over 200 bp). We added genes where we thought they would be appropriate, although we are not 100% sure they are right. We merged our files during the last lab, and I can’t wait to see what other groups have come up with! Hope everyone is having a great break!

Hey Guys! So Dr. Adair showed this awesome link today in class which discusses some recent uses of biotechnology. I read this article on stem cell techniques, and I thought it’d be worth sharing on our blog. Here’s the link- http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/answering-the-question-what-will-stem-cells-become/81249012/.

This article talks about a technique that was developed by the scientists at the University of Toronto. This new technique has the potential to rapidly screen stem cells to control what they will turn into in the future. The technology can be used in regenerative medicine and drug development; it can also give a better understanding of how to turn stem cells into clinically useful cell types. Science is amazing!