Human gene-editing research, even on embryos, is needed and should go ahead, with one major caveat: No pregnancies can result, leaders of an international summit on the topic said December 3. Gene editing of human body, or somatic cells, which do not pass genetic information to future generations, is already in clinical trials. Most of those studies have involved older…
Male zebra finches, small songbirds native to central Australia, learn their songs by copying what they hear from their fathers. These songs, often used as mating calls, develop early in life as juvenile birds experiment with mimicking the sounds they hear. MIT neuroscientists have now uncovered the brain activity that supports this learning process. Sequences of neural activity that encode…
Biologists at Tufts University have succeeded in inducing one species of flatworm to grow heads and brains characteristic of another species of flatworm without altering genomic sequence. The work reveals physiological circuits as a new kind of epigenetics – information existing outside of genomic sequence – that determines large-scale anatomy. The finding that head shape is not hard-wired by the…
When most wild animals first encounter humans, they respond as they would to any predator — by running, swimming or flying away. Over time, some species become more tolerant of humans’ presence, but the extent to which they do is largely driven by the type of environment in which the animals live and by the animal’s body size, according to…
Probiotic exposure during the first 27 days of an infant’s life may be associated with reduced risk of islet autoimmunity among children at increased genetic risk for type 1 diabetes, although further studies are needed before any recommendations for probiotics can be made, according to a University of South Florida-led study published online by JAMA Pediatrics. Ulla Uusitalo, PhD, of…
A baby girl with aggressive leukaemia has become the first in the world to be treated with designer immune cells that were genetically engineered to wipe out her cancer. The one-year-old, Layla Richards, was given months to live after conventional treatments failed to eradicate the disease, but she is now cancer free and doing well, a response one doctor described…