Dino-Chicken--Not of the Nugget Variety

With the recent Jurassic World movie, even this generation's young people know about the disastrous outcome of when scientists "play god" and create a park full of dinosaurs. Despite this, dinosaur breeding may be closer than one may think. The Indominous rex was one of the unlikely stars of the recent Jurrasic World movie, for a good reason. While fossilized dinosaur DNA that is still viable has yet to be found, remnants of the prehistoric code that existed in dinosaurs still exists in chickens today. Quoted in an article on livescience, James Horner, the inspiration for the original Jurassic Park's Alan Grant, says, "Chickens and all birds are carrying much bigger chunks of dinosaur DNA than we are ever likely to find in the fossil record." He believes that, because DNA tends to come apart after a cell dies, there wouldn't be anything left after millions of years.
However, in a bird, there may be enough groundwork and prehistoric DNA that they could be essentially reverted to resemble a dinosaur. It's already been proven that birds can be transgenically created to have teeth and a team from Yale and Harvard recently retro-engineered a bird's beak to look like a dinosaur-looking mouth. Horner believes that all that is left is to recreate the tails and transform the wings back into an arm and hand. He admits a miniature dinosaur may be about ten years off.
While this is scary, much like Grant I would love my own miniature pet dinosaur, but I do believe this whole exercise would anger people who are traditionally against GMOs. This involved completely modifying an organism to create something completely different which leaves a weird taste in my mouth.

Dad's Experiences Affect Their Children

In an article written by Paul Haggarty, a recent study published in Science was explained concerning the idea of epigenetics, the information in the genome aside from what is contained in the DNA sequence. The most popular form studied by scientists relates to the chemical modification, acetylation and methylation, of DNA and histones. The information can be expressed, or used, or hidden, but always existing in a person's cells and tissues.
The study in Science claims to have shown that manipulation of the epidenetic process during the production of sperm in mice influences the development of their offspring over many generations.
We already know specific signatures in the fathers sperm have been linked to autism or the susceptibility of the child to certain diseases. In the new study, scientists at Mcgill University altered the activity of a histone protein that controls epigenetic processes during sperm production in mice. It was shown to affect the health of the offspring and it persisted over generations.
In addition, it is suggested that if certain environmental factors disrupt this epigenetic process, there could be birth defects that can be traced back to the father. For example, there is a certain possible evolutionary utility of the milder effects of this which may allow offspring to sense the metabolic environment, whether it may be famine or plenty, and to program its own metabolism to respond accordingly.
I am of the opinion that these kinds of factors must be due to something specific, we just haven't discovered it yet. It is impossible for these effects to be transferred without some kind of information holding material, and if it is not DNA, it must be something else, or it may be all coincidence.

Some People 'Hardwired' to Prefer High-Calorie Foods

Dr. Tony Goldstone from Imperial College London in UK and his colleagues have found two genetic variants that seem to influence whether an individual chooses high or low calorie foods. The team conducted DNA genotyping on 45 white European adults ranging from age 19 to 55 in order to identify the presence of the FTO gene, which plays a role in the regulation of dopamine in the brain, the reward hormone. These participants ranged in their body mass from 19.1 kg/m2 to 53.1 kg/m2, ranging from healthy to obese.
The participants were asked to view piectures of high and low calorie foods and rate how appealing they were, and an MRI was used to analyze their brain activity.
It was found that those who posessed some variant near the FTO gene and rated the high calorie foods as more appealing demonstrated greated activity in the orbitofrontal cortex as well as the striatum depending on the DRD@ gene variant they possessed.
They suggest that individuals with the FTO gene may be at a greater risk for obesity early beccause thy experience more cravings than the average person for high calorie foods.
Some treatments have been suggested after this study, such as using gut hormones that target dopamine cells in the brain to alter the hormone's influence on cravings.
The study helps researchers to better understand the biological behaviors that lead to obesity.

Original article

Researchers Build Nanoscale Autonomous Walking Machine from DNA

Researchers have found a way to create a molecule that walks in a bipedal fashion along a bumpy surface. Using a single piece of DNA connected to two legs and a torso, this nanotechnology may be able to be used to find cancer cells. According to this article, there may soon be DNA walkers that walk around an organ, "constantly computing whether cancer is present," according to Andrew Ellington, a professor in the department of Molecular Biosciences.
Similar molecules had been synthesized in the past that were only able to walk in specific directions or on specific DNA sequences. For example, in a paper published by William B. Sherman and Nadrian C. Seeman, similar DNA motor molecules that are able to use a "foot...to pair with complementary strands of DNA." These molecules differ from the new molecules in that previously, there were specific locations they could move. The new molecules can move randomly in any direction over a bumpy surface, allowing them to be indiscriminant of what cells they land on. This allows them to randomly find what may be cancer cells and eventually to amplify them to notify their presence.They may also mean there is a future for nanoscale therapeutics.
This is so interesting to me because I remember in a high school biology class we watched a video of a molecule that walked along DNA, literally, with what appeared to be legs. To see that humans are able to recreate this with actual DNA molecules and that we can use it to our advantage is amazing.

Inner ear gene discoveries offer clues about hearing and balance

Normal development on the left, absence of Sox11 and Sox4 leading to malformation of the inner ear structures on the right.

A new study from the Rockefeller University in New York may show researchers ways to regrow hair cells and restore lost hearing and balance. The study was lead by senior author and professor, A. James Hudspeth, and the lab work was done by Dr. Ksenia Gnedeva. They examined mice before and after birth, and discovered that two genes control the process of generating hair cells. By switching the genes on, new hair cells were observed in mature utricles. The utricle, a small sac or bag-like organ lined with hair cells that detects motion, is highly controlled by the transcription Sox4 and Sox11. Even in older mice, when the genes are turned on, Gnedeva found new hair cells developing. However, if both genes are turned off in developing mice, it leads to the entire inner ear developing abnormally.
This study was done in hopes to find a way to "restore hair cells later in life".
A study in a similar field was done recently, and it is the development of a genetic blueprint of inner ear cell development. This was found with a new technology called single-cell RNA-seq. This sequencing provides a' foundation for the potential development of cell-based therapies for treating hearing loss and balance disorders. The adaptation from the original media release can be found here.
I find this so interesting that such a small factor can have such an expansive outcome.

Lefties, Language, and Lateralization

Many people may recognize a diagram of the brain that shows the left side as the "mathematical" side of the brain and the right side of the brain as the "artistic" side of the brain. In fact, this wiring is slightly different for everyone. This is a well-known myth. However, according to an article written by Bob Grant, there may be a correlation between handedness and behaviors and where language processing takes place. Particularly, he writes, "95% of right-handed people do the bulk of language processing in the left hemisphere of their cerebral cortex, while only 75% of left-handers show the same pattern."

What is so interesting about this is that it goes to show that between individuals there is so much variation between the way their brains are wired, yet the function is essentially the same, according to Metten Somers, a psychiatrist at University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands.
I think the most interesting thing is that this has such a clear significance for our day to day lives, seeing as how we are constantly meeting people who are hardwired differently.

It was long thought that handedness was controlled by a single gene, but Somers has done research to dispute this. He and his colleagues studied a large group of "lefties" and performed "genetic linkage analyses of left-handedness, atypical lateralization, and degree of language lateralization in the brain." They realized it is "more complicated" and say it makes more sense for there to be multiple genes controlling this.