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Human stem cells differentiated into auditory neurons.
There are more than 275 million people that have moderate to profound hearing loss, and many are caused by a breach in the connection between the inner ear and the brain. Researchers have discovered that a key component in repairing the auditory nerve is human embryonic stem cells.
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Researchers have been able to remotely activate genes inside mice, proving the concept that one day, there will be medical procedures in which patients’ genes are triggered from afar. The team led by Jeffrey Friedman, a molecular geneticist at the Rockefeller University in New York, states that in the short term, these results will lead to better tools to manipulate cells, in a non-invasive manner.
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Three sunflower arrangements (top) and their floret types (bottom). Wild sunflowers have typical outer ray and disc florets (left), double-flowered sunflowers have mostly ray-like mutant florets (middle), and tubular sunflowers grow only disc-like florets (right).
The famous Dutch impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh was obsessed with sunflowers, until he died in 1890. His iconic paintings of sunflowers fetch millions of dollars at auction. Scientists have been trying to solve the genetic origin of the mutant teddy bear sunflowers that are depicted in van Gogh’s canvases.
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Molecular genetics of Rett syndrome: when DNA methylation goes unrecognized
Rett syndrome, a severe autism spectrum disorder, which affects roughly 1 girl in 10,000 to 20,000 worldwide, could be reversed by a bone-marrow transplant.
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The rapidly disappearing glaciers are altering more than the physical landscape, as a recent analysis suggests. Species that live in streams and rivers that flow from melting glaciers could start disappearing when half of the glacial cover in a region is lost.
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A team of scientists claim that they’ve revived a plant from the Pleistocene era, which lived 32,000 to 28,000 years ago. Silene stenophylla was revived after it had been ingested by an arctic ground squirrel roughly 32,000 years ago.
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Syncytin is a gene that was found in the human genome, but is bears all of the hallmarks of originating from a virus. Back in 2000, a team of Bostonian scientists discovered it. The cells of syncytin were located only where the placenta made contact with the uterus. They fused together to form a single cellular layer, which is called the syncytiotrophoblast, essential for a fetus to draw nutrients from its mother.
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