#genetics

[stemcelltherapies]

Sleep and Certain Genes Linked to Alzheimer's Brain Changes

New research reveals that variations in a brain water channel gene called AQP4 do not act alone in Alzheimer's disease. In older adults with no cognitive impairment but with amyloid protein buildup, these genetic variants were directly linked to reduced brain volume, faster brain shrinkage, and lower cognitive scores. The connection grew stronger when sleep was poor. People carrying certain AQP4 variants who struggled with sleep duration, took longer to fall asleep, or reported poor sleep quality showed more severe brain changes. Sleep disturbances also amplified cognitive decline in these individuals. Since people can often adjust their sleep habits, the results hint that improving sleep could help counteract genetic susceptibility to brain damage tied to Alzheimer's, pointing to a practical prevention strategy.

https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.71516

[shamebats]

Given the paucity of evidence for any decisive role of genetic factors in most questions of illness and health, why all the hoopla about the genome project? Why the pervasive genetic fundamentalism? We are social beings, and science, like all disciplines, has its ideological and political dimensions. As Hans Selye pointed out, the unacknowledged assumptions of the scientist will often limit and define what will be discovered. Settling for the view that illnesses, mental or physical, are primarily genetic allows us to avoid disturbing questions about the nature of the society in which we live. If "science" enables us to ignore poverty or man-made toxins or a frenetic and stressful social culture as contributors to disease, we can look only to simple answers: pharmacological and biological. Such an approach helps to justify and preserve prevailing social values and structures. It may also be profitable. The value of shares in Celera, the private company participating in the genome project, went up 1,400 per cent between 1999 and 2000.

From When The Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté.

[dduane]

Oh gods... chocolate genetics

I should have known this was going to happen. Inevitable. (starts hunting for the notebooks)

(please gods don't let this be like pumpkin genetics. cripes, what a mess)

(or citrus genetics, ye gads)

Learn more about Cacao Genetics!

Criollo, Trinitario, Amelonado, Forastero, Nacional, CCN51, ICS95… What does all this actually mean? We in the specialty cacao industry are

[mercuryhomunculus]

How exactly can mice have autism/schizophrenia?

This isn't really my field of research and I am in no way an expert on the matter, but as far as I understood from the article I read last year about schizophrenic mice, this specific type of mice was genetically engineered to express schizophrenic-like behaviour. Basically, it's more about whether the mouse acts like a schizophrenic human than whether it is actually schizophrenic

Aside from that, from what I've understood, mice brains are very structurally similar to a human's, so a mouse's brain with a structure similar to a schizophrenic/autistic human brain might indicate it has that disorder, too (but I might be wrong on that one)

(The article I refered to in the first paragraph is 'Hippocampal reelin and GAD67 gene expression and methylation in the GFAP.HMOX1 mouse model of schizophrenia' if you are interested)

[vintageslideshow]

A clear family resemblance on the four ladies, 1966.

[er-cryptid]

Gyrase

-- enzyme

-- topoisomerase class

-- subclass of type II topoisomerases

-- tetrameric

-- pronounced specificity to DNA substrates

-- SGS = strong gyrase binding sites

-- SGS is found in some phages and plasmids

-- target of many antibiotics -> nalidixic acid -> novobiocin -> ciprofloxacin

-- reduces topological strand during unwinding

-- ATP-dependent manner

-- allows bacteria to have free negative supercoils

-- moves in front of the progressing replication fork on DNA

-- causes negative supercoiling as it does

-- relaxes positive supercoils

-- loops the template to form a crossing, then cuts one of the double helices

-- changes the linking number by two

-- occurs in -> bacteria -> some parasites -> eukaryotic plastids -> some plant chloroplasts

.

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[rainbowgod666]

it's theoretically possible to make a coding language that resembles DNA.