Utricularia gibba3

Carnivorous, Flowering Bladderwort Reveals Depths of Gene Duplication

Genetics can get weird. Especially so in plants, which are more conducive to hybridization and duplications of their entire genome. Polyploidy, as such a duplication is called, is often rampant across ancestral lineages of plants and makes species classification taxing, to say the least. The Flowers and the Carnivores The flowering plants, also known as […]

Camellia sinensis-IMG 3444

Investigating The Tea Genome And How To Make More Flavorful Tea

Even more so than coffee, tea is the most popular drink in the world, barring alcohol itself. Its history stretches back thousands of years and across dozens of cultures. The caffeine within and the multiple health benefits from regular consumption have helped continue its popularity to this day. But that popularity includes an ever increasing […]

Yeast membrane proteins

The Scientific Creation of a Fully Synthetic Living Organism

Progress continues on the Synthetic Yeast Project, an international scientific initiative that aims to build a yeast genome out of completely synthetic chromosomes. The latest update involves seven papers published together in the journal Science detailing the five pre-designed chromosomes that have been successfully swapped into the genome of yeast. The model organism S. cerevisiae […]

Scanning electron micrograph of phagocytosis of a dead yeast particle

A Tenet Of Evolutionary Biology May Be Completely Wrong

Not every tenet of science is set in stone. That’s often been seen in fields like physics and astronomy over the past few decades, where huge innovations and discoveries have been made. But biology isn’t isolated from these sorts of findings. Today’s topic of discussion is new research that calls one of the tenets of […]