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Climate change and iron availability may drastically alter algae blooms in the Southern Ocean, trapping vast nutrients
Shifts in diatom population may have profound effects on global nutrient distribution and carbon cycling
New wiki on salivary proteins may transform diagnostic testing and personalized medicine
Database curates info on inner workings of saliva, an attractive tool for noninvasive diagnostics and precision medicine
National Academy of Sciences launches new open access journal, PNAS Nexus, in partnership with Oxford University Press; Karen Nelson to serve as inaugural editor-in-chief
Genes necessary for cell division in modern bacterial cells identified
Discovery may help shape understanding of primitive cell division
Scientists find evidence that novel coronavirus infects the mouth’s cells
NIH-funded findings point to a role for saliva in SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
Scientists map how iron, a critical mineral for survival, is processed by algae, a cornerstone of the ocean food web
Nearly forty proteins identified in the intracellular process, helping to build a conceptual overview of how iron is allocated within diatom cells
J. Craig Venter Institute Scientists to Investigate Role of Opioid Abuse in HIV and HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorders Pathogenesis through $4.7M NIDA Grant
Study aims to identify candidate molecules to regulate HIV infection in the central nervous system in patients abusing opioids
Influenza A Virus Discovered in Heart Muscle Tissue Causing Damage Long After It Has Cleared from the Lungs
Strategies to inhibit necrotic cell death or to prevent mitochondrial damage should be pursued as possible therapies to reduce cardiac damage during influenza infections
Hamilton O. Smith, M.D., Synthetic Biology Pioneer and Nobel Laureate, to Step Down from Daily Duties at J. Craig Venter Institute
Dr. Smith will maintain advisory role as professor emeritus
Scientists set a path for field trials of gene drive organisms
As genetically engineered organisms ramp up, a multidisciplinary coalition offers a framework for ethical, socially engaged and transparent field practices
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Around Mac-town
We are now fully packed and our mobile research sled is ready to go. We are waiting for some final repairs on the Pisten-Bully which will pull our supply sled. The mobile laboratory sled will be pulled by the Sno-Cat Tucker, which also has cab space for six (riding in the mobile lab would...
Ice diatoms!
Today has been a day of preparations, as tomorrow we hope to leave McMurdo Station and head out on the sea ice. Our mobile sled is almost ready for deployment: the carpenters who work for the US Antarctic Program are quite amazing, and our sled has filtration racks for separating different...
Sea-ice class
Today Abigail Noble and I took a Hagglund transporter out onto the Ross Sea to learn the basics of sea ice safety and ice dynamics. The sea ice on McMurdo Sound can be 2 meters thick, but this ice is constantly changing, and when you drive along its surface, you can't assume that it is...
Happy Camp
Our project on the Ross Sea will take us far from heated facilities of McMurdo Station, so all members of our team need to attend "Happy Camp", a two day course on snow camping and basic Antarctic survival. Happy Camp is held out on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, and it is an immersion program in...
McMurdo Station
Entering McMurdo is like entering a modern mining town: lots of exposed rock and unpaved streets, above ground utilities and bare-bones architecture. Utilitarian. From the airport we were taken to a briefing room, introduced to our science coordinators, and given our shcedules. Since I am...
Transport to the ice
Wednesday morning started with a 5AM taxi ride to the US Antarctic Program's processing center at the Christchurch airport, where we had to repack our bags and put on our emergency cold weather gear for the flight. Our plane was the C-17 Globemaster III, a large military transport plane more...
Polynya opens in the Ross Sea
A helicopter pilot recently sent us an image of the area we are planning to sample, and the stable sea ice we intended to use as a platform for drilling and sampling is now a giant stretch of open seawater! A large opening like this is a polynya, a term borrowed from the Russian...
Christchurch, New Zealand
Greetings from Christchurch, New Zealand, the anteroom to Antarctica. My colleagues and I have been here for several days now, running last minute errands, getting equipped with cold weather gear, and waiting for a flight south to McMurdo Station. The flight here was remarkable only in it's...
Why Antarctica, and why now?
So why are you going to Antarctica, and why are you going now? A very logical question... basically we are traveling to Antarctica to study microscopic marine plants known as phytoplankton. These organisms range in size from bacteria to diatoms to colonial algae, but all phytoplankton have two...
Trip preparations (inaugural posting!)
Well, we have less than a week left, and we are finalizing and shipping the chemicals and equipment we will need for sampling below the sea ice in the Ross Sea. We have already shipped out several hundred pounds of gear, and more await us in storage down at McMurdo Station in Antarctica....
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Can CRISPR help stop African Swine Fever?
Gene editing could create a successful vaccine to protect against the viral disease that has killed close to 2 million pigs globally since 2021.
Getting Under the Skin
Amid an insulin crisis, one project aims to engineer microscopic insulin pumps out of a skin bacterium.
Planet Microbe
There are more organisms in the sea, a vital producer of oxygen on Earth, than planets and stars in the universe.
The Next Climate Change Calamity?: We’re Ruining the Microbiome, According to Human-Genome-Pioneer Craig Venter
In a new book (coauthored with Venter), a Vanity Fair contributor presents the oceanic evidence that human activity is altering the fabric of life on a microscopic scale.
Lessons from the Minimal Cell
“Despite reducing the sequence space of possible trajectories, we conclude that streamlining does not constrain fitness evolution and diversification of populations over time. Genome minimization may even create opportunities for evolutionary exploitation of essential genes, which are commonly observed to evolve more slowly.”
Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve
By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve.
Privacy concerns sparked by human DNA accidentally collected in studies of other species
Two research teams warn that human genomic “bycatch” can reveal private information
Scientists Unveil a More Diverse Human Genome
The “pangenome,” which collated genetic sequences from 47 people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, could greatly expand the reach of personalized medicine.
First human ‘pangenome’ aims to catalogue genetic diversity
Researchers release draft results from an ongoing effort to capture the entirety of human genetic variation.
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