It’s Monday, and there’s plenty of catching up to do around the world of genetics. This week month -
The Broad Institute received an astonishing $400 million endowment from the donors that bear its name. The Institute helped mapped the full complement of the human genes. This record-setting gift will fund genomics research.
A melanoma cell line mistakenly identified as breast cancer cell line was used in more than 650 published breast cancer studies. The mistake happened 25 years ago, and could have implications for the cancer studies the cell line was used in.
The NIH awarded $138M to 47 scientists for …read more

Closely related species of Pairie dog don’t live together (Photo credit Imperial College) Ever wondered why family feuds result in fighting relatives keeping their distance … often for a very long time? Well, reseachers at Imperial College, UK have observed that steering clear of your rels may have evolutionary beginnings. Mammals cannot share their habitat with closely related species because the need for the same kind of food and shelter would lead them to compete to the death. This idea that closely related species would be unlikely to be found together because they compete ferociously was first put forward by Charles Darwin …read more

(Photo credit: www.marinebio.org) 
At the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Bonn nearly 200 countries agreed on measures to protect the world’s most threatened wildlife.  They pledged:
1. To set up a deep-sea nature reserve and increase by tens of millions of hectares the area of land protected (the resulting protected area would be twice the size of Germany).
2. To ban experiments to boost plankton growth to reverse climate change, because of the potential risks to other animals.
3. To set global standards for developing biofuels, a renewable energy that has been blamed for deforestation.
But environmentalists said the progress achieved at the conference was still failing …read more

 
Stonehenge, UK 
(Photo credit: www.activemind.com)
A topical article for me as I will be passing Stonehenge today.  It is an amazing feat of 4,500 year old primitive engineering and still provokes feelings of wonder and awe everytime I pass by, especially on solstice and equinox days.
Stonehenge served as a burial ground for much longer than had previously been believed, new research suggests. The site was used as a cemetery for 500 years, from the point of its inception.
Archaeologists have said the cremation burials found at the site might represent a single elite family and its descendents – perhaps a ruling dynasty.
Professor Mike …read more

King Akhenaten (photo credit www.usu.edu) 
The feminine features and elongated head of ancient Egypt’s King Akhenaten may be attributed to two genetic defects called aromatose excess syndrome and craniosynostosis, reports Yale School of Medicine dermatology Professor Irwin Braverman, M.D.
Akhenaten, a pharaoh during Egypt’s 18th Dynasty credited with starting the practice of worshipping one God, fathered six children. He was often portrayed in sculptures and carvings with a thin neck, elongated head, large buttocks, breasts, and even a prominent belly, suggesting pregnancy.
Aromatose excess syndrome can lead to feminine features in men and advanced sexual development in girls. Akhenaten’s daughters are depicted with breasts …read more

 (Tasmanian Tiger – photo credit www.bbc.co.uk/news)
Using transgenic mice, Australian and American researchers have shown that they can “resurrect” a snippet of DNA from the genome of an extinct animal — the Tasmanian tiger — and test its biological function in a living animal.   The last Tasmanian Tiger died in an Australian zoo in 1936 having been hunted to extinction.
Dr Andrew Pask, of the Department of Zoology at Melbourne University, who led the research, said it was the first time that DNA from an extinct species had been used to carry out a function in a living organism.
“As more and more …read more

A nationwide team of researchers, funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has produced the first sequence-based map of large-scale structural variation across the human genome.
Recently created maps such as the HapMap have catalogued the patterns of small-scale variations in the genome that involve single DNA letters, or bases.  A sequence-based map provides much finer resolution and location information.
Researchers constructed the structural variation map by partially sequencing the genomes of eight people: four people of African descent, two of Asian descent and two of European descent. Sequence data …read more

 
KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco recently did a radio story about the UC San Francisco Canine Behavioral Genetics Project run in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania. The aims of the project are:
1. To explore the relationship between genes and behavior, both normal and abnormal, in domestic dogs.
2. To assess the amount and nature of genetic diversity in domestic dogs, both within and between breeds. 
Melanie Chang of the CBG project
Anyone wishing to send in their dog’s DNA can visit the site:
http://www.k9behavioralgenetics.com/ 
Dog DNA samples waiting to be processed at the CBG project 
However, it is often said dogs and their owners resemble each other. …read more

(Picture courtesy of BBC News)
Scientists have discovered the oldest human remains in western Europe.
A jawbone and teeth discovered at the famous Atapuerca site in northern Spain have been dated between 1.1 and 1.2 million years old.
Scientists also found stone tools and animal bones with tell-tale cut marks from butchering by humans.
Its small size suggests it could have belonged to a female.
The finds provide further evidence for the great antiquity of human occupation on the continent, the researchers write in the journal Nature.
Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com

‘Clover structure’ of Transfer RNA 
Transfer RNA (tRNA) is ancient. It is the most direct intermediary between genes and proteins. Like many other RNAs (ribonucleic acids), tRNA aids in translating genes into the chains of amino acids that make up proteins. The fact that tRNA is so central to the task of building proteins probably means that it has been around for a long time.
Professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés and Feng-Jie Sung of Univeristy of Illinois-Urbana Champaigne had a hunch that understanding the structural properties of tRNA would shed light on how organisms and viruses evolved.
All tRNAs assemble themselves into a shape that, if …read more