Category Archives: Evolution and genetics

Chemical tags on RNA, as well as DNA, rediscovered and implying mechanisms involving epigenetics

Posted on March 14, 2017 by DWN

Chuan He (chemist at Uni­versity of Chicago in Illinois) had been studying a family of proteins that repair damaged DNA, and he began to suspect that these enzymes might also act on RNA. A colleague nearby in the same building, … Continue reading →

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FW: Seven temperate terrestrial planets found around the nearby ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 ….!!

Posted on March 14, 2017 by DWN

Most stars in our Milky Way Galaxy are much smaller and dimmer than the Sun. Low-mass stars that are about 80 times the mass of Jupiter have core temperatures that are just high enough to convert hydrogen into helium. The … Continue reading →

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Prevalence and architecture of de novo mutations responsible for developmental disorders in children

Posted on March 11, 2017 by DWN

Genomes of patients having severe, undiagnosed developmental disorders are well known to be enriched in damaging de novo mutations (DNMs) in developmentally important genes. The attached paper describes the whole-exome sequencing (WES) of 4,293 families containing individuals with developmental disorders. … Continue reading →

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Evolving as a holobiont

Posted on March 11, 2017 by DWN

During this past decade, scientists have come to realize the importance of all the bacteria, fungi, and other single-celled microorganisms living in our gastrointestinal (GI) tract. As mentioned before on these GEITP pages, total DNA content of a human includes … Continue reading →

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Tracing the “Peopling of the World” (The Great Human Diaspora) through genomics

Posted on February 22, 2017 by DWN

One of the (less predicted) benefits of The Human Genome Project (that started in Oct 1990) –– was the amount of DNA sequence, and perhaps especially including informative DNA sequence data that could be retrieved from ancient bones uncovered all … Continue reading →

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An epigenetic mechanism might be the reason why aerobic glycolysis encourages effector T cell differentiation ??

Posted on November 15, 2016 by DWN

In oncology, the Warburg effect is the observation that most cancer cells predominantly produce energy by a high rate of glycolysis [process by which glucose is converted to pyruvate plus a proton (H+); the free energy released is used to form the high-energy molecules … Continue reading →

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Within the same wave out of Africa (??), Aborigines diverged from Eurasians between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago

Posted on October 7, 2016 by DWN

For anyone who has visited the Outback (sometimes seen also in cities), you know that Australian Aborigines appear “quite distinct” in appearance––often displaying blue eyes and blonde hair while having brown skin and small stature. They have long been cast … Continue reading →

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“Acetylation reader proteins” that link acetylation signaling to genome maintenance and cancer

Posted on October 5, 2016 by DWN

Heritability is the manifestation of genetic and epigenetic traits. Genetic traits include normal and mutated (alternative) DNA sequences. Epigenetic effects are chromosomal in origin but occur outside the DNA sequence; these include DNA methylation, RNA-interference (RNAi), histone modification, and chromatin … Continue reading →

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Emergence of a Homo sapiens-specific autism-related gene family on Chr 16p11.2 CNV susceptibility, having arisen by natural selection

Posted on August 25, 2016 by DWN

Genetic differences that specify unique aspects of human evolution have typically been identified by comparative analyses between the genomes of humans and closely related primates—including more recently the genomes of Homo neaderthalensis and Homo denisoviensis. Not all regions of the … Continue reading →

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Fossils of archaic hominins hold amazing secrets to the history of human evolution

Posted on August 13, 2016 by DWN
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