Soybean fields at Applethorpe Farm

Temperature Tolerance: Recent Efforts In Biotechnology

Temperature is something we worry about in our lives all the time. What temperature is it outside so you know what to wear and what are the conditions going to be in coming days or weeks. Farmers have to worry about this as well, as excessive periods of heat or cold snaps can prove damaging […]

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Parasitic Worms Use Toxic Venom To Liquefy Insects

Parasitic worms seem to be a topic being covered here more often as of late, but that’s likely because they are just as involved in every aspect of our lives as bacteria are. Understanding how these worms function can bring new insights into human health, agriculture, and more. In one of our prior articles, we […]

Rat primary cortical neuron culture, deconvolved z-stack overlay (30614937102)

CRISPR-Cas9 Allows Photographic Imaging Of Genes In Live Cells

Imaging cellular processes has always been difficult. With biotechnology, we have been able to use marker genes like green fluorescent protein (GFP) to follow the activities of individual cells, but that is a far cry from interior mechanisms within a cell. Since the dawn of the field, technology has advanced so that fluorescent microscopy has […]

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RNA Editing Allows Cephalopods To Alter Genetic Instructions

The central dogma of molecular biology and genetics is pretty straightforward. You take DNA, then you transcribe the desired gene into RNA (usually mRNA) and, once outside of the nucleus, you translate that RNA using ribosomes into amino acids that then form proteins. Those proteins then do the actual function that their original genetic encoding […]

PSM V81 D325 A fine source of guayule near las caopas zacatecas

Using Genetic Modification To Produce A New Source Of Rubber Plants

Rubber is one of those unusual substances that isn’t thought about much, but is used in practically everything. From the simple and direct usage in tires for vehicles to any kind of hose or machinery belt or insulation in tiled flooring. There is also the rubber that is used to create latex, which is so […]

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CRISPR: An In-Depth Primer On All Its Varieties

A Historical Viewpoint The Explosion Onto The Public Stage For those focused on how history will favor the uncovering of CRISPR and the miraculous developments that have and will spawn from it, the first thing to note is that the idea and research into the technology started several years prior to its explosion into the […]

Saving East Africa From The Pestilent Famine Of The Sugarcane Mosaic Virus

The fight against Potyviruses is seemingly neverending in agriculture. Say Hello To Another Terrible Potyvirus As past discussions have shown, they are some of the most deadly plant viruses out there, causing huge swaths of crop death and harvest losses. Additionally, moving up a level to the family of Potyviridae shows that 30% of all […]

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New Technique Allows Development Of Better Vaccines Against Yellow Fever

Yellow fever is one of those diseases that you really want to avoid contracting. But for 200,000 people every year, they don’t receive that option. A Yellow Condition The yellow fever virus is the originating name for its parent genus of Flaviviruses, where the yellow of its name in Latin (Flavus) colors all the rest […]