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There’s a lot that can happen before the information inside a gene gets translated into a protein. For example, RNA transcripts that are derived from sequences that are located far away from each other on the genome can be fused in a process called trans-splicing. Trans-splicing has been observed in several eukaryotic species, including Hydra’s [...] You know the Dead Sea? That hypersaline lake located between Israel and Jordan, were even the worst swimmer can remain buoyant? The lake that’s so salty that it’s supposed to be entirely dead, since no life can thrive in such salty conditions? False! While you won’t find fish swimming around in the Dead Sea, there’s [...] Besides being a delicacy in Japan and various other parts of the world, sea urchins have a longstanding career as a model organism in biology. The first description of these spiny, spineless creatures can be found in Aristotle’s History of Animals, dating from the 4th century BC 1. From the 1800s onward, the sea urchin [...] Just to clarify this post’s title: I have not taken up an extremely dangerous but exciting new hobby. The sea monsters from the title have been extinct for a long time. But that doesn’t stop scientists from figuring out how sexual characteristics developed in these Jurassic reptiles. In humans and in other mammals, the X and Y chromosomes are [...] A tree of life showing the common ancestry of life on earth is one of the most powerful metaphors in science, one which stood the test of time remarkably well. The concept of a taxonomic tree as a means to arrange species can be attributed to the German naturalist Pallas in 1766. At his time, [...] |
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