Did you know that it is legal to patent a gene?
According to US law, it is. In 1980, the Supreme Court heard the case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty, which became a landmark for genetic science in terms of being able to lay claim to certain parts of the genome. While working for GE, Chakrabarty had developed a strain [...]
Posted in DNA, bioethics, dilemmas dilemmas!, discuss, genetics, science and society
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In honor of Charles Darwin's upcoming 200th birthday (it's February 12th), the editors of Nature decided to publish a selection of twelve different examples of evolution that have been uncovered by researchers in the past thirty or so years. Wired's science blog spotlights those examples here.
We have learned that there are two primary factors that drive [...]
Posted in DNA, celebrate, discuss, evolution, genetics, nature is strange sometimes
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Earlier this week, it was reported that a baby with two faces was born to a young couple in rural northern India. Lali, born last month in a normal delivery, has a condition known as craniofacial duplication. Diprosopus is well-documented in the literature, but the number of cases in which the diprosopic infant [...]
Posted in discuss, genetics, proteins can be uncool too
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This week, CNN.com is running a series about autism. If you are not familiar with autism, here's a little primer about this condition.
Autism is a disorder of brain development that usually appears before the age of 3 that results in developmental delays causing problems with communication, social development and interaction. Many children with [...]
Posted in bioethics, brains!, discuss, genetics
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57 Comments
There's a saying that goes, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
The company, 23andme, founded by Anne Wojcicki (wife of Google founder Sergey Brin) is a privately held biotechnology company that strives to provide the Average Joe with information about their own personal genomes. For $999, 23andme will run a genomic analysis [...]
Posted in bioethics, genetics, genomics is a cool branch of biology
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58 Comments