Breeding higher yielding crops by increasing sugar import into seeds
Once a mother plant releases its embryos to the outside world, they have to survive on their own without family protection. To ensure successful colonization by these vulnerable creatures, the mother...
View ArticleModified mosquitoes could help fight against malaria
For the first time, malarial mosquitoes have been modified to be infertile and pass on the trait rapidly - raising the possibility of reducing the spread of disease.
View ArticleSpelling mutations and evolutionary advantages
DNA codes carrying instructions for creating a protein can sometimes be 'spelt' differently, although they specify the exact same sequence information to create that protein. Scientists from the...
View ArticleThe herring genome provides new insight on how species adapt to their...
How species genetically adapt to their environment is a central question related to the evolution of biodiversity. In a new study scientists at Uppsala University and their colleagues report that whole...
View ArticleHereditary diseases are the price of protection against infections
Almost half our genes can be the starting point for diseases. Scientists have identified 11,000 genes that occur in the human genome in variants that can cause disease. Scientists from the Max Planck...
View ArticleObesity genes probably didn't evolve to help us survive famine
Genes that helped our ancestors store fat in times of famine may have been useful, but whether they cursed future generations with a predisposition toward obesity is a little more controversial. This...
View Article