Word: dna
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...reach, improbably, a body of water known as Lake Vostok that rivals Lake Ontario in size. While scientists haven't yet drilled into the lake itself, they have pulled up samples of frozen lake water clinging to the bottom of the ice cap that contain unmistakable evidence of microbial DNA. Although it hovers near the freezing point, cut off from light and outside nutrients, Lake Vostok is teeming with microorganisms. "Nobody," marvels John Priscu, a Montana State University microbiologist who has studied the samples, "thought there could be any life down there...
Extremophiles also represent a biotech bonanza, pumping out unique substances that could be invaluable in all sorts of industrial and medical applications (see box). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), for example, the DNA-amplifying method used most famously in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, exploits an enzyme manufactured by a Yellowstone extremophile...
That puts the new Sahelanthropus tchadensis at a crucial evolutionary crossroads. Scientists have long believed that apes and humans share a common ancestor. But recently, comparisons of fossil and modern primates and analyses of modern ape and modern human DNA have independently indicated that a single ancestral ape gave rise to both chimps and hominids between 5 million and 7 million years ago. That presumed great-great-great-grandape almost certainly swung from trees in the African forest. If so, then Sahelanthropus, or Toumai, could well have been the very first hominid, or at least one of the first...
...week on the website of the journal Science, provoked a surprisingly heated debate among biologists. Eckard Wimmer, a microbiologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led a team that built a copy of the polio virus by assembling more than 7,000 base pairs of DNA to match a published record of the virus's genetic code. Some scientists say the research, while an impressive technical feat, creates needless fears in a population already skittish about anthrax and smallpox. "Why did [Wimmer] pick a human disease which conjures up terrifying images?" asks Stanford University biowarfare expert...
...court upheld drug testing of student athletes, only a fraction of school districts followed through. Many holdouts cite budget constraints; others cite privacy issues. A.C.L.U. attorney Graham Boyd warns, "If drug testing now becomes a rite of passage...the door will be cracked open wider to government demands for DNA, medical records, financial information and other personal data...