It's been known for a while that the FOXP2 gene is involved in human speech - damage to the gene causes speech difficulties. But now a group of researchers in Los Angeles has investigated how FOXP2 works in humans, comparing it to the functioning of the gene in chimps. It turns out that FOXP2 functions as a gene regulator, which means that it unleashes proteins that can switch other genes, called "targets," on and off.

Said geneticist Daniel Geschwind:

We found that a significant number of the newly identified targets are expressed differently in human and chimpanzee brains. This suggests that FOXP2 drives these genes to behave differently in the two species.

In other words, human FOXP2 causes unique behaviors in other genes.

Added neurology researcher Genevieve Konopka:

Genetic changes between the human and chimp species hold the clues for how our brains developed their capacity for language. By pinpointing the genes influenced by FOXP2, we have identified a new set of tools for studying how human speech could be regulated at the molecular level.

Knowing what the FOXP2 gene does is just the first step. The question is whether tweaking the chimp FOXP2 could cause it to hit targets in the chimp genome that would lead to speaking chimps. You know, so we could turn them into perfect workers. Or into our future overlords.

via UCLA

A study at the University of California at Irvine studied the affect of a certain variant of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene on driving. The gene supports communication in the brain cells and is associated with keeping memory strong. For people with a certain variant of the BDNF gene, this process works less than optimally, and those people are less likely to recover from a stroke. Roughly 30 percent of Americans possess that less optimal variant.

The researchers had 29 participants, 22 without the less optimal variant of the gene and seven with it, take a simulated driving test. In the simulator, participants had to loop a track and gradually learn its nuances. They then had them drive the same simulated track days later. Participants with the gene variant performed worse on the driving test; they did not stay on the course as well as the participants and remembered less about the track during the second test.

But even if this genetic variant does make you a worse driver, it has certain advantages. Some studies have found that people with the variant retain greater mental sharpness when faced with neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, Huntington's and multiple sclerosis.

[Physorg]

Researchers at the University of Washington have been working with adult squirrel monkeys born without the ability to distinguish color. By introducing therapeutic genes for perfect color vision to the light-sensing cells at the back of the monkeys' eyes, the researchers have given the monkeys the ability to distinguish red and green. Although further research is needed, the team is optimistic that this is the first step in curing congenital color blindness, the most common form of which involves a faulty gene on the X chromosome.

But what's truly stunning about the breakthrough is that the monkeys in the study were adults. Light perception has been restored in children suffering from degenerative blindness, but researchers have long believed that adult brains are too "fixed" for sensory disorders to be treatable. That the adult monkey brains were readily receptive to perceiving color, something they had never done before, may open the door to treating a whole host of sensory conditions.

'Gene cure' for colour blindness [BBC]

DNA Art Forms takes a more interpretive approach with DNA portraiture than most companies. After identifying 15 unique regions of your genetic code, clients consult with an artist as to how they want their DNA represented, be it as an abstract form, a landscape, or as an actual portrait including your image. Portraits start at $1500, and clients are consulted each step of the way, approving concept sketches before paint ever touches canvas.

DNA 11, which claims to have pioneered the DNA portrait, takes a more straightforward approach, taking a traditional representation of a genetic profile and offering it in a wide variety of colors and sizes. The glass portraits start at $199, and fingerprint and kiss portraits are available as well.

If you just want a representation of a single gene, My Gene Image will look at a single gene from your genetic sample, such as an eye color, pheromone, circadian rhythm, or mood gene. The company will then identify the sequence of nucleotides that make up that gene, and will render the gene as a series of As, Ts, Gs, and Cs against a colorful background.

WEB2DNA doesn't actually sell artwork, and its images don't actually represent human DNA, although they are done in the style of a genetic profile. It actually converts website data into a visual structure based on DNA portraits, creating a visual "genetic profile" for your website. And, if the mood strikes you, you could always print it out and hang it on your wall.

[via The Bio(logy) Blog]

London Calling DNA Portrait from DNA Art Forms
Miss Mad M DNA Portrait from DNA Art Forms
Theresa DNA Portrait from DNA Art Forms
Ephemeral — Two DNA Profiles from DNA Art Forms
Catherine — Single DNA Profile from DNA Art Forms
One Wish for You DNA Landscape — Three DNA Profiles from DNA Art Forms
DNA Profiles as Cityscape from DNA Art Forms
Orange Profile from DNA11
Two DNA Profiles from DNA11
Blue Profile from DNA11
Blue Mosaic Gene Rendering from My Gene Image
Orange Life Gene Rendering from My Gene Image
Pink Eye Color Gene Rendering from My Gene Image
"DNA" Rendering of Website Data from Baekdal.com

BBC News explains:

One of the scientists, Dr Yali Xue from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire, said: "The amount of data we generated would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

"And finding this tiny number of mutations was more difficult than finding an ant's egg in an emperor's rice store."

New mutations can occasionally lead to severe diseases like cancer. It is hoped that the findings may lead to new ways to reduce mutations and provide insights into human evolution.

Joseph Nadeau, from the Case Western Reserve University in the US, who was not involved in this study said: "New mutations are the source of inherited variation, some of which can lead to disease and dysfunction, and some of which determine the nature and pace of evolutionary change.

"These are exciting times," he added.

I hope one of my 100 mutations includes the X-gene. I'm ready to grow wings now. Or, hey, I'd be satisfied with telekinesis.

via BBC

In a paper published in Forensic Science International, Dan Frumkin, a private forensics researcher, claims that fabricating DNA evidence has become so easy that "[a]ny biology undergraduate could perform this."

Frumkin outlines two methods for fabricating DNA evidence. The first requires access to a small sample of an individual's DNA, such as a hair or a bit of saliva. The size of the sample is then increased through a common technique known as DNA amplification. Then the hopeful framer takes blood from a different individual, centrifuges it to remove the DNA-carrying white blood cells, and leaves only the red blood cells, which contain no DNA. The person then adds the amplified DNA to the blood sample, creating a handy supply of blood that could be splashed onto a crime scene to implicate the chosen target.

The second method requires no actual sample of DNA, but a person's DNA profile, which may be stored in a law enforcement database. These profiles identify variations at 13 specific spots in an individual's genome. Frumkin claims that a scientist could keep a library of a cloned snippets of DNA representing the variants at the 13 spots (he estimates 425 samples would be needed in all), and he or she could mix the snippets to create a DNA sample matching anyone's genetic profile.

Frumkin says that, at the moment, there are ways to determine whether DNA evidence has been fabricated (and his own company, Nucleix, provides such tests), but it's a step forensic labs don't normally take. Although some respondents question whether criminals will actually use these techniques to throw suspicion off themselves and onto others, Tania Simoncelli, an American Civil Liberties Union science adviser, suggests that it's time for courts to reevaluate the reliability of DNA evidence:

"DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints," she said. "We're creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology."

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show [NY Times]

The chemicals industry very commonly uses fungi to generate useful chemicals. The fungus T. reesei, with its ability to convert useless plant waste into very useful glucose, leads the pack. It's referred to as the "industrial workhorse."

Most of the fungi that we use to generate these chemicals reproduce asexually. T. reesei, originally extracted from moldering army uniforms 50 years ago, was assumed to reproduce only asexually. But in an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team from Vienna, Austria, reports that they have found a way to get T. reesei to reproduce sexually. (No word on whether this involved Barry White records or champagne.)

Sexual reproduction is often better for a biological population than asexual reproduction. Sex allows for the correcting of minor mutations and spreads genetic variation across a population. Sexual crossing in T. reesei will allow the fungus to kick up its efficiency in glucose production and therefore better serve the bio-fuels industry.

T. reesei's sexual reproduction will also allow scientists to create stronger and more specialized strains of the fungus more easily. Sexual variation will open the door to better and better chemical synthesis using T. reesei. Who knew that sex could solve so many problems?

Sexual development in the industrial workhorse Trichoderma reesei [PNAS]

What these scientists have done could give us the first foolproof HIV vaccine. They have re-awakened the human genome's latent potential to make us all into HIV-resistant creatures. This evening in PLoS Biology, they've published their ground-breaking research.

A group of scientists led by Nitya Venkataraman and Alexander Colewhether wanted to try a new approach to fighting HIV - one that worked with the body's own immune system. They knew Old World monkeys had a built-in immunity to HIV: a protein called retrocyclin, which can prevent HIV from entering cell walls and starting an infection. So they began poring over the human genome, looking to see if humans had a latent gene that could manufacture retrocyclin too. It turned out that we did, but a "nonsense mutation" in the gene had turned it off at some point in our evolutionary history.

Nonsense mutations are caused when random DNA code shows up in the middle of a gene, preventing it from beginning the process of manufacturing proteins in the cell. Venkataraman and her team decided to investigate this gene further, doing a series of tests to see if the retrocyclin it produced would keep HIV out of human cells. It did.

At last, they knew that if they could just figure out a way to reawaken the "junk" gene that creates retrocyclin in humans, they might be able to stop HIV infections. The researchers just needed to figure out a way to remove that nonsense mutation and get the target gene to start manufacturing retrocyclin again.

Here's where things really get interesting. The team found a way to use a compound called aminoglycosides, which itself can cause errors when RNA transcribes information from DNA to make proteins. But this time, the aminoglycoside error would work in their favor: It would cause that RNA to ignore the nonsense mutation in the junk gene, and therefore start making retrocyclin again. In preliminary tests, their scheme worked. The human cells made retrocyclin, fended off HIV, and effectively became AIDS-resistant. And it was done entirely using the latent potential in the so-called junk DNA of the human genome.

After more research is done, the researchers believe this might become a viable way to make humans immune to HIV infection.

What intrigues me, beyond the amazing idea of an AIDS vaccine, is that aminoglycosides have the potential to unlock the uses for other pieces of junk DNA. Those of you who read Greg Bear's novel Darwin's Radio know that this scenario is familiar scifi territory: In that book, humans start rapidly evolving after their junk DNA re-awakens in response to stress. Could we induce instant mutations, or gain other new immunities by using aminoglycosides on our junk DNA? What would it mean to have the whole crazy, giant human genome at our command?

via PLoS Biology

Science Commons' John Wilibanks made the announcement today at O'Reilly's Etech Conference in San Jose, explaining that the data would be provided by Harvard's Personal Genome Project, a group whose goal is to sequence thousands of people's genomes over the next several years. They're committed to making all the data from these genomes public, in order to foster research into everything from disease to evolution.

The first few genomes that the Personal Genome Project has sequenced will soon be available via BitTorrent, using a system developed by ProteomeCommons. The genomes are being released under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) agreement, which places zero restrictions on how people use the data.

Wilibanks explained that the genomes themselves would not be CC licensed, since you can't copyright genomic data - but all the notes and information about the genomes would be available to the public. And the public is welcome to use the genomic data however they wish. Ultimately, he suggested, making the data available in such an accessible manner encourages scientists to share their research findings and may discourage companies from locking up the information in dubious patents.

A group of researchers at the University of Washington have discovered that there is one area where human and ape DNA mutated very rapidly during the time that they were diverging on the evolutionary tree. Both species' genomes mutated a great deal in areas where there are a lot of repeat sequences of DNA. Humans, like most creatures, have areas of their genome where the same chunk of genetic code is repeated once or several times.

According to the University of Washington, lead researchers Tomas Marques-Bonet and Jeffrey M. Kidd said:

The new study shows big differences in the genomes of humans and great apes within duplicated sequences containing rapidly evolving genes. Most of these differences occurred at a time just prior to the speciation of chimpanzee, gorilla, and humans.

So is it possible that the reasons for such dramatic differences between human and chimp can be traced back to these quickly-mutating repeat regions?

According to the University of Washington:

Chimps and people share almost 99 percent of the non-duplicated sequences of their genomes; their proteins are virtually identical; and there are very few rearrangements that distinguish ape-human chromosomes. In contrast, the researchers noted that the duplicated sequences show much more variation than the other portions of the genetic code.

But this is such a new area of research that we need to be cautious before drawing any firm conclusions. While this looks like a promising avenue for further inquiry, the researchers explained:

There is still no final answer as to why chimps and humans are different. Maybe segmental duplications that are specific to humans are another layer to explore, or maybe the distinction between human and chimps is not found in these genetic differences. What is certain is that genetic differences contribute significantly to what makes a human and chimp different, and we know that these regions of our genetic code are changing much more rapidly than most others. The next challenge will be making sense of all these differences and the genes that are affected by them.

While previous studies have suggested that we will learn more about ourselves by studying so-called junk DNA, or DNA that doesn't seem actively involved in coding for proteins. But this new work suggests we study the parts of our genetic code that repeat themselves. These odd, repeated segments of our DNA may be the key to understanding why we mutated into the hairless, neurotic hominids we are, instead of turning into happy-go-lucky bonobos.

SOURCES:

University of Washington

Nature

A Massachusetts company called GTC Therapeutics manufactures ATryn, which is designed to help people with blood-clotting disorders. Though ATryn is unlikely to become a blockbuster drug, since it aids only a small part of the population, its approval opens the door for more pharmed drugs to hit the market. But why genetically engineer a herd of goats instead of just making drugs the old-fashioned way?

According to the New York Times:

Proponents say such "pharm animals" could become a means of producing biotechnology drugs at lower cost or in greater quantities than the existing methods - which include extracting proteins from donated human blood or growing them in large steel vats of genetically engineered cells.

The protein in the goat milk, antithrombin, is sometimes in short supply or unavailable for pharmaceutical use because of a shortage of human plasma donations. GTC Biotherapeutics said one of its goats can produce as much antithrombin in a year as can be derived from 90,000 blood donations. And if more drug is needed, the herd can be expanded.

More pharmed drugs are already in production, including a cure for hereditary angioedema (a disorder that causes tissue swelling) produced in the milk of GMO rabbits.

SOURCES:

The Great Beyond [blog for Nature journal]

New York Times

It’s pretty open-and-shut, to my mind; and frankly, I’m surprised to have seen any support at all for tweaking your kids’ genetic makeup to taste on a forum like this one, where the taste of the mainstream public is routinely derided. How much of science fiction teaches us that people, and especially large crowds of people, tend to make terrible decisions? Cripes, look at how much of history teaches us this:

Salem Witch Trials

Nazism

The Macarena

And why would we expect it to be any different when it comes to passing on our DNA?

And therein lies the problem. It can be entertaining and illuminating to delve into the philosophical points of whether we should choose a baby’s sex or eye color or give them a chocolate-flavored penis, and whether we even have the right to do so in the first place—but ultimately, we have to look at the practical aspects of the question, too. And one of those relevant realities, sad or not, is that people love fads.

On a small scale, that might not seem like such a big deal. Like, OK, so violet eyes become popular—and you know they would; we’d have preschools teeming with little purple-eyed monsters named Carson and Sequoia—but what’s the damage? And perhaps there wouldn’t be any, although there are many people still alive who remember when differences in color determined, say, which water fountain you got to drink out of.

Sex selection is more worrisome. Again, maybe it would just all pan out that about half of parents would choose boys and half would choose girls—although, as was pointed out in last week’s post, even without science that allows them to choose, there are people who clearly lean one way. Yes, you could argue that this is actually a point in favor of sex-selection technology (as commenter icelight did)—that if a culture is going to kill its daughters, for example, then letting them opt for sons from the outset at least keeps babies from being murdered. That’s a fair point, but there’s an inherent danger in it, beyond the fact that it could be seen as implicitly condoning the culture in question’s inherent sexism (which, for the record, is not what I think icelight was doing).

The danger, which figures into all questions of designer offspring, is simply that we might skew our genetic portfolio the “wrong” way—and I put wrong in scare quotes because, short of being able to predict the future, there’s no way to tell which attributes may or may not be valuable two or three generations down the line. Is it good to be tall? Sure, unless something bad happens to your planet and you have to move underground, in which case a population whose average height is six-foot-two is a gross inconvenience. Is it good to have a super-efficient metabolism that keeps you from getting obese? Absolutely, unless food for some reason abruptly becomes much less plentiful.

Even in the case of predetermining and preventing a child’s predisposition for disease or disability, I’m wary. When it comes to cancer, it’s pretty cut and dry, but what about autism or dyslexia? The case has been made that these aren’t inherently crippling conditions so much as different modes of perception that aren’t aligned with the traditional or mainstream way of experiencing the world. By eliminating them from the gene pool just because we’re sure they’re “bad,” we may risk cutting ourselves off from a valuable kind of knowledge.

The thing about nature is that it makes our genetic choices for us randomly, impersonally, and incontestably. We can assume with some certainty that by leaving our biological makeup in its hands, we’re not going to end up with too many tall people, too many women, too many redheads, or too many or too few of anything else. I’m all for scientific progress, but I’m even more in favor of caution, particularly when it comes to something as irreplaceable and still well beyond our understanding as humanity’s genetic constitution. We have not, in my opinion, demonstrated sufficient wisdom to convince me that we can be trusted to ensure our future as a healthy species once we start futzing around with the biology that determines it. Once we do, hey—give your kids all the chocolate-flavored penises you want.

Commenter Moff’s real name is Josh Wimmer, and he can usually be found at scribblescribblescribble.com/blog.

So the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, had her fertilized embryo (pictured) tested for the gene. She wanted to eradicate the gene from her family, and was able to do it by picking an embryo that did not contain the gene. Now she is guaranteed that her offspring does not carry this particular breast cancer-causing gene, called BRCA1.

According to the BBC:

[Fertility expert Paul] Serhal said: "The whole objective of this exercise is not just to make sure the child doesn't have the gene, but to stop the transmission from generation to generation."

He said it was "an exciting new era," adding that it would be possible to screen for any mutated gene which had been linked to a specific cancer.

But he said that, in this case, not carrying an altered BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes.

Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: "While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child.

[via BBC]

The research team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthology presented their findings last week at a human evolution conference. The researchers have compared the Neanderthal genome to that of modern humans of European and African descent. Because Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in Europe, researchers have theorized that European genomes would have more similarities with the Neanderthal genome than would African genomes. However, European and African genomes have a similar number of differences from the Neanderthal genome, suggesting that modern humans in Europe outbred rather than assimilated the Neanderthals.

Earlier comparisons of mitochondrial similarly cast doubt on the Neanderthal interbreeding theory, but recent research has revealed that Neanderthals do not possess the very genes some researchers believed modern humans had received from Neanderthals. Neanderthals possess neither the microcephalin gene, linked to bulging brains in humans, nor humans’ increased fertility gene.

The team is planning to publish a rough draft of the Neanderthal nuclear genome, and hopes that a closer study of the genome will reveal more about the Neanderthal history. They believe, for example, that further analysis of the available genome will reveal whether Neanderthal practiced polygyny, with fewer males breeding with proportionally more females. But the study is hampered by the poor quality and small sample of available genetic samples, and the researchers say it will be another year or two before an adequate sequencing is complete.

[New Scientist]

Atlas Sports Genetics, a testing company in Boulder, Colorado, analyzes children’s ACTN3 gene, which has been linked with athletic performance. Certain variants of the gene supposedly indicate whether an individual is predisposed to excelling at certain sports based on the involvement of speed, power, and endurance in each sport. Atlas advertises its wares by suggesting to their parents that their child could be a future Olympic champion, and claiming that their test could identify that championship ability in weeks rather than potentially wasteful years years.

Currently, the predictive abilities of these tests are dubious. But even if these and other genetic tests become accurate predictors of ability, there is a lot of doubt as to whether children should be assigned any sort of ability orientation. Some note that the tests are less for the benefit of children than for parents with Olympic and All-American dreams:

“I find it worrisome because I don’t think parents will be very clear-minded about this,” said William Morgan, an expert on the philosophy of ethics and sport and author of “Why Sports Morally Matter.” “This just contributes to the madness about sports because there are some parents who will just go nuts over the results.

“The problem here is that the kids are not old enough to make rational autonomous decisions about their own life,” he said. (NYT “Born to Run? Little Ones Get Test for Sports Gene”)

William Salaten at Slate’s Human Nature blog sees something more insidious at work, noting that this test could result in our culture performing a kind of environmental eugenics, creating a Gattaca-like future where children are barred from certain activities:

What's really disturbing about this idea, in the case of ACNT3, is that it isn't crazy. The data make a strong case that being XX really does lock you out of success at the highest levels of sprinting and power sports. From an individual standpoint, that doesn't much matter: You can run track, play pickup basketball, and live happily ever after. But from your country's standpoint, putting you on the track team is a waste. We need that slot for an RR kid, and we need a genetic test to find him.

And, notes Lisa Belkin at the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, putting a child in only activities in which they succeed can actually be counterproductive to a child’s development into a full-fledged person:

What I fear it would become is one more way for parents to insure that their children never learn to fail. In her latest book, “Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking: Powerful, Practical Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Resilience, Flexibility and Happiness,” the psychologist Tamar Chansky argues that this is one of the most fundamental jobs of a parent, and one we don’t tend to do very well…If you never fail, she writes, you never learn that you can pick yourself back up again. And that’s a lesson best learned young, while your center of gravity is low and it doesn’t hurt as much to fall down.

It seems that in all this, the core problem is that parents are purchasing tests like these for their children, who are too young to exert autonomy over their situations and too easily seen as a collection of genes rather than the humans they will evolve into. Perhaps the problems of eugenics and pigeonholing could be alleviated by performing non-medical consumer genetic testing only on people who are able to consent to it.

[Atlas Sports Genetics via New York Times]

The researchers found two fly genes, known as magu and hebe, that are responsible for causing older female flies to continue laying eggs. And they noticed that when those genes "over-express," or go into overdrive, that they also extend the natural lifespan of the flies by up to 30 percent. Humans have a gene, SMOC2, which is similar to the magu gene, so it's possible that these findings will be relevant to humans as well. Scientists already know of reliable ways to make genes over-express.

John Tower and Yishi Li, who conducted the research, are publishing the results this month in Molecular Genetics and Genomics. They suggest that hebe and magu genes have life-extending effects because they promote the formation of stem cells. Stem cells keep bodies young, and are also crucial to reproductive health. So when hebe and magu over-express, they stimulate the growth of new stem cells, and that has a cascade effect on the body's youthfulness.

Said Tower:

This would appear to be stimulating the stem cells to divide more in the old fly and therefore produce more offspring. It both makes females lay more eggs and live longer, so it really argues against any kind of obligatory tradeoff between reproduction and lifespan.

Add to your purses of the future a little bag of life-extension pills that will keep you fertile and lively well into your 100s.

Adult-Specific Over-Expression of the Drosophila Genes magu and hebe [via Molecular Genetics and Genomics]

Mammoths lived and died pretty much exclusively in very cold climates, so paleontologists have been able to find a few of them freezer packed for freshness. With access to such well-preserved specimens, geneticists have sequenced roughly 70 percent of the species' genome. At the same time, some labs are hard at work sequencing the elephant genome, which is the closest match to the mammoth currently alive on Earth. So Nature decided to find out exactly what it would take to bring a real, living woolly mammoth into the world again.

1). Build the DNA from scratch using the basic chemicals that make up all base pairs, with the reconstructed mammoth genome as the recipe. You might have to fill in some gaps in the mammoth genome with elephant, in case we can't find enough frozen mammoths to complete theirs.

2). Get two copies of each of the dozens of mammoth chromosomes into the nucleus of a viable cell. This step is like giving someone directions to a far-away place by simply giving them the latitude and longitude. We can sort of do this on a small scale, but we probably don't have the technology to make this happen with mammoths yet.

3). Make the cells into an embryo. You'd probably use an egg from a modern female elephant to accomplish this, essentially creating a clone of the "artificial" mammoth DNA you'd manufactured.

4). Bring the embryo to term. Using an elephant as a surrogate mother seems logical, but apparently there are logistical problems with a modern elephant's internal structure. Robot mammoth mom, maybe?

5). Find some more frozen mammoths so you can create genetically distinct clones. You'll never have a breeding population without some genetic diversity.

Creating a real-world Jurassic Park (or, in this case, a Pleistocene Park) would be just about the coolest thing ever. Oddly enough, nobody mentions chaos theory in the Nature article, but there is a way we could cheat JP-style. By comparing the mammoth and elephant genomes, we could genetically engineer a "mammophant" that looks pretty much the same as a woolly mammoth, but isn't. Image by: rpongsaj.

Resurrecting the mammoth? New research raises the prospect. [Ars Technica]
DNA sequencing: Mammoth genomics. [Nature]

Piccinini, who has lived in Australia since childhood, works with a critical eye toward genetic manipulation. Her series “Nature’s Little Helpers,” which includes “The Bodyguard,” “Getaway,” “The Surrogate,” and “Big Mother,” envisions creatures that have been created to protect and rehabilitate the Australian ecosystem:

The sculptures present a series of creatures that I have designed to ‘assist’ a series of the endangered Australian animals. In the photographs, we follow more closely one of these creatures, ‘The Bodyguard (for the Golden Helmeted Honeyeater)’. It is very seductive to think that we could find a simple technological solution to complex ecological problems such as extinction. It is far more exciting to talk about genetic engineering than to designate a large area of habitat/real estate as national park so that dozens or even hundreds of native species might be given a better chance of survival. We have a long history of scientifically introducing new stuff into our environment in order to make it better, however it has rarely worked. Yet our relatively recent understanding of genetics seems to have left us ready to add yet more stuff in an unprecedented way. Why do we think we have it all figured out now?

But the inclusion of children in many of her sculptures, who treat these unnatural creations with little more than curiosity, wonder, and affection but a different spin on the story, suggesting that the next generation would neither view these animals with revulsion nor focus merely on their usefulness. And another series, “Nest and The Stags,” lends overtly animalistic qualities to motor vehicles.

[Patricia Piccinini via Design Corner]

Above, you can see a nice introduction to so-called epigenetic ways your body passes information from cell to cell, or creates the proteins that make your body thrive. At one time, it was believed that each gene was a tidy strand of molecules in a row on you DNA, and that each gene created one kind of protein. Now it turns out the story is far more complicated.

Not only can a "gene" be located all over the place — part on one chromosome and part on another — but not all information is even carried in the DNA proper. Some is carried in proteins, and some in RNA, the molecules that move between DNA in the cell nucleus, and the cellular cytoplasm beyond. There is also DNA located outside your nucleus in your mitochondria, an energy-producing organelle, or mini-organ, in the cytoplasm.

If you want to understand the next wave of biotech that's going to be living in your body and medicines, check out this article. Zimmer has done a great job making the big concepts comprehensible without dumbing anything down.

Now: The Rest of the Genome [via NYT]