Saturday, March 3, 2018

Here we are; it's March

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/mutant-crayfish-clones-europe.html
A NYT article by Carl Zimmer about marble crayfish, a species that didn't exist before about 1993. The marbled crayfish species is the result of a single mutation. The mutated version is larger than the garden-variety (these are not found in gardens, however) and one can produce hundreds of eggs at a time without mating, and the offspring are all female,  (maybe Crawmoms instead of dads?) Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center who sequenced the genomes of the mutant marmorkrebs, and other species, determined that one parent of the mutant had a mutation in a sex cell (egg or sperm) and the female crayfish embryo wound up with three copies of each chromosome instead of the normal two. Since these crayfish are genetically identical, they are clones of one another and could be taken down by a pathogen which "gets their number."



http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/pheramor-dating-app-dna-matches-dates-men-women-partners-relationships-a8131316.html From the independent (UK) a report about a company called Pheramor that has a special dating app based on submission of a DNA cheek swab which matches people based on attraction and identity, It isolates the genes for pheramones, chemical signals that are believed to spark sexual attraction. Genetic data is combined with personal information in the prospective daters' profiles using a proprietary algorithm.




https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/health/scott-kelly-dna-nasa-twins-study/index.html This is a report from CNN about findings from the NASA Twins Study, which compared Scott Kelly with his identical twin, who had not spent time in space.7% of Scott''s DNA had changed. Some of the mutations may have been due to the stresses of space travel, including hypoxia (low oxygen) and high amounts of carbon dioxide. Scott's telomeres, caps at the end of chromosomes which are thought to be involved in aging, also increased in length.
Twins study: How one-year mission affected astronaut's health