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Study Exposes Ancestry Biases in Current Gene Annotations

Human gene maps contain major blind spots because they were built largely from the DNA sequences of people with European ancestry, according to a study published today in Nature Communications.

4 Dec 2025

Harnessing Triploid Loquat to Unlock Aneuploid Diversity for Advanced Breeding

Triploid plants are widely valued in horticulture for desirable traits such as seedlessness, yield improvement, and stress resilience.

2 Dec 2025

New Label-Free Breakthrough for Studying Bacterial Shape Diversity

Scientists have long known that bacteria come in many shapes and sizes, but understanding what those differences mean has remained a major challenge, especially for species that can't be grown in the lab.

2 Dec 2025

Unraveling How GFAP Mutations Disrupt Mitochondria in Alexander Disease

Some brain disorders are straightforward, such as the direct frontal lobe assault of a concussion or traumatic brain injury. Others, like Alexander disease, are akin to guerilla warfare.

2 Dec 2025

Ambiguous Stop Codons Expand the Genetic Code in Archaea

The beauty of the DNA code is that organisms interpret it unambiguously. Each three-letter nucleotide sequence, or codon, in a gene codes for a unique amino acid that's added to a chain of amino acids to make a protein.

2 Dec 2025

Study Uncovers How Polyploid Plants Harness Transposons for Evolutionary Innovation

Polyploidization, the combination and duplication of genomes, is a major driver of plant evolution and diversification. Yet this process causes "genome shock," leading to rapid activation of transposable elements (TEs).

2 Dec 2025

New Insight Into Light-Guided Growth of Bristleworm Eyes

A new study, led by the University of Vienna and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, shows how the eyes of adult marine bristleworms continue to grow throughout life – driven by a ring of neural stem cells reminiscent of vertebrate eyes.

2 Dec 2025

Hidden Messengers in the Blood

Every second, countless minute packages circulate through the bloodstream, transporting crucial data between the body’s cells.

1 Dec 2025

Real-Time Visualization Reveals the Transcriptional Gearbox

Life's instructions are written in DNA, but it is the enzyme RNA polymerase II (Pol II) that reads the script, transcribing RNA in eukaryotic cells and eventually giving rise to proteins.

28 Nov 2025

Gene Transcription Start Sites Identified as Hidden Mutational Hotspots

Researchers have discovered new regions of the human genome particularly vulnerable to mutations. These altered stretches of DNA can be passed down to future generations and are important for how we study genetics and disease.

27 Nov 2025

Scientists Uncover Inner Workings of Biomolecular Condensates Linked to ALS

Inside the cell reside many tiny assembly factories and warehouses that gather together all of the proteins and RNAs-which carry out instructions from our DNA-that a living being needs.

27 Nov 2025

Scientists Map How Transcription Factors Interpret DNA Sequences

With a new study in the journal Cell, researchers at Stanford University and Stockholm University have contributed to increased knowledge about gene regulation in human cells.

27 Nov 2025

DNA Rigidity Inside the Nucleosome Regulates INO80 Positioning

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have shown that DNA inflexibility, or rigidity, inside the nucleosome regulates the positioning of INO80. This highlights that the physical structure and shape of DNA, not just genetic information, are key components of DNA transcription.

26 Nov 2025

Ribosome Collisions Activate Key Stress Signaling Mechanisms in Cells

LMU researchers uncover the mechanism by which ribosomes raise alarms in the cell.

25 Nov 2025

Novel Mechanism for Epigenetic Patterning in Plants

Every cell within an organism shares an identical genetic blueprint. Their distinct identities stem from epigenetics—precise chemical markers that dictate gene expression.

24 Nov 2025

Optogenetic Tool Uncovers Key Role of Mechanical Forces in Early Embryonic Development

Only two weeks after fertilization, the first sign of the formation of the 3 axes of the human body (head/tail, ventral/dorsal, and right/left) begins to appear.

24 Nov 2025

Genetic Analysis Uncovers Six Distinct Lineages of Global Tea Germplasm

Using 150 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers across 252 tea accessions from India and China, researchers identified six major genetic groups, including the small-leafed sinensis and five broadleaf assamica populations from India, Indochina, and Yunnan. The

22 Nov 2025

New Tool Maps Microbial Activity to Transform Gut Health Research

The gut microbiome is made up of trillions of microbes that play a vital role in keeping us healthy.  A disturbance in the balance of these microbes can contribute to a variety of health conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

22 Nov 2025

New Polygenic Risk Scores Transform Disease Prediction for Han Chinese Populations

Researchers at Academia Sinica have developed the first population-specific polygenic risk score (PRS) models for people of Han Chinese ancestry, achieving unprecedented accuracy in predicting risks for common diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disorders.

22 Nov 2025

Cancer Cells Survive Treatment and Regrow by Hijacking Cell Death Enzyme

The emergence of cancer drug resistance remains one of the most pressing problems in cancer care and there is a critical need to devise approaches to mitigate it.

22 Nov 2025