#Genetics

[hellsitegenetics]

String identified: t t at a t a a, a t’ t t ga tg ca ag a t ga g tac: (Ctt - t ga tac a att a, a t tat t ca ta a t ttt tac’ taca . T ca c at c, a c t (, t) tac t tat. a ct a t at tat t ccat.) t ctt: a a actcg att.

Closest match: Glycine soja cultivar YSD56 chromosome 17 Common name: Wild Soybean

(image source)

I just found the earliest email I ever sent from my email address, and it’s the funniest goddamn thing I can possibly imagine a fourth grader sending her teacher:

(Context - my fourth grade teacher was on maternity leave, and the state of the classroom fish tank was dire under the substitute teacher’s tyrannical rule. The class convened at recess, and decided to inform our (24yo, new mother) former teacher of the situation. I was selected as the duly appointed representative for this solemn communication.)

[hellsitegenetics]

Are.. are there any matches for Smash Mouth All Star full lyrics? I need to know. For science!!!

String identified:

c t T ga a't t at t t a g t g a t t a a a

, t a tat cg A t 't t cg t t a t t g g 't a t t a gt at t a gt

c t , c t at' g t tag t ac tt? ' 't g ' 't g

, ' a a ta Gt ga , g a , ' a c ta Gt t , gt a A a tat gtt g tg ta a t

t' a c ac a t a t gt c ' t at t gt t t t g t gg t t att ct

T c at gttg tt t T at gttg a gt a ' , at ? Tat' t a t A gt

, ' a a ta Gt ga , g a , ' a c ta Gt t , gt a A a tat gtt g tg ta a t

, ' a a ta Gt ga , g a , ' a c ta Gt t , gt a A a tat gtt g tg ta

c a C a cag ga? t gt aa t ac a: , at a cct c a tt A c a a tt cag

t a tat cg A t 't t cg t t a t t g g 't a t t a gt at t a gt

c t , c t at' g t tag t ac tt ' 't g (g!) ' 't g

, ' a a ta Gt ga , g a , ' a c ta Gt t , gt a

A a tat gtt g tg ta a t A a tat gtt g tg ta a t

Closest match: Ennomos fuscantarius genome assembly, chromosome: 3 Common name: Dusky Thorn Moth

[reasonsforhope]

"Once thought to be extinct, black-footed ferrets are the only ferret native to North America, and are making a comeback, thanks to the tireless efforts of conservationists.

Captive breeding, habitat restoration, and wildlife reintegration have all played a major role in bringing populations into the hundreds after near total extinction.

But one other key development has been genetic cloning.

In April [2024], the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced the cloning of two black-footed ferrets from preserved tissue samples, the second and third ferret clones in history, following the birth of the first clone in December 2020. 

Cloning is a tactic to preserve the health of species, as all living black-footed ferrets come from just seven wild-caught descendants.  This means their genetic diversity is extremely limited and opens them up to greater risks of disease and genetic abnormalities. 

Now, a new breakthrough has been made.

Antonia, a black-footed ferret cloned from the DNA of a ferret that lived in the 1980s has successfully birthed two healthy kits of her own: Sibert and Red Cloud.

These babies mark the first successful live births from a cloned endangered species — and is a milestone for the country’s ferret recovery program.

The kits are now three months old, and mother Antonia is helping to raise them — and expand their gene pool.

In fact, Antonia’s offspring have three times the genetic diversity of any other living ferrets that have come from the original seven ancestors.

Researchers believe that expanded genetic diversity could help grow the ferrets’ population and help prime them to recover from ongoing diseases that have been massively detrimental to the species, including sylvatic plague and canine distemper. 

“The successful breeding and subsequent birth of Antonia's kits marks a major milestone in endangered species conservation,” said Paul Marinari, senior curator at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. 

“The many partners in the Black-footed Ferret Recovery Program continue their innovative and inspirational efforts to save this species and be a model for other conservation programs across the globe.”

Antonia actually gave birth to three kits, after mating with Urchin, a 3-year-old male ferret. One of the three kits passed away shortly after birth, but one male and one female are in good health and meeting developmental milestones, according to the Smithsonian.

Mom and babies will remain at the facility for further research, with no plans to release them into the wild.

According to the Colorado Sun, another cloned ferret, Noreen, is also a potential mom in the cloning-breeding program. The original cloned ferret, Elizabeth Ann, is doing well at the recovery program in Colorado, but does not have the capabilities to breed. 

Antonia, who was cloned using the DNA of a black-footed ferret named Willa, has now solidified Willa’s place as the eighth founding ancestor of all current living ferrets.

“By doing this, we’ve actually added an eighth founder,” said Tina Jackson, black-footed ferret recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in an interview with the Colorado Sun. 

“And in some ways that may not sound like a lot, but in this genetic world, that is huge.”

Along with the USFWS and Smithsonian, conservation organization Revive & Restore has also enabled the use of biotechnologies in conservation practice. Co-founder and executive director Ryan Phelan is thrilled to welcome these two new kits to the black-footed ferret family.

“For the first time, we can definitively say that cloning contributed meaningful genetic variation back into a breeding population,” he said in a statement.

“As these kits move forward in the breeding program, the impact of this work will multiply, building a more robust and resilient population over time.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, November 4, 2024

[msqsimsofficial]

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[hellsitegenetics]

String identified: : gg t a t c a ct t Ga a t t ct : gt t g a ca c ct att t a, ca c a c t a't t 't tat ca GT T t ct t a Ca a a, t' ta t. gt t. a a t , , 'a 't ta. T ta a a t ac t tt t a. Tat a t ag t tg gtgt ag t a at c a t tagt gt "t t t a t a", ca t' … t t a ' a a aa t at at a 't c a a t 't a t t tag

Closest match: Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Co-4 chromosome 1 sequence Common name: Thale Cress

(image source)

downside: going to have to include a picture of the Giza pyramids in the slides for the lecture upside: i get to give people a crash course in why perspective matters in two frames, because

followed by

is such a funny sequence

[headspace-hotel]

was browsing thru papers about animal coloration and learned that a gene that helps make the placenta in humans (the thing that keeps you alive when you're a fetus in the womb) also exists in cheetahs, but in the cheetahs, it just controls the placement of their spots

How does THAT happen?!

[wolverinequeen]

Unusual cat gene that seems to occur naturally in Poland and Romania. This gene is called Karpati. More can be read here 

[garden-of-willows]

made these studying cat genetics over the past 2 weeks!

i felt like there weren't enough visual guides of cat genetics so i went ahead and made some simple ones, my main references were Sparrow's Garden the website, Sparrow's Garden the blog, Messybeast, and The Little Carnivore.

Please only use these for general reference and not for tracing, using as a base, or reposting!! You can trace the poses for practice, but please don't post them if you do so. Please don't use them as a free Base, either.

[heartswellz]

me when the wildtype gene sucks balls but i mutated to become a null allele instead and it ROCKS

man type null is so fucking cool. what if there was a chimera made in the image of god and it was abused and sheltered for all of its life and only by giving it the freedom to live and run around and love on its own terms can you unlock its full potential??? genuinely insane. the alola games cooked so much

[ofmiceandwomen]

As a physiologist let me say a few words.

I don’t care about sports. I don’t give a damn about the Olympics for other reasons I won’t talk about. But I’m pissed now.

If we are to disqualify the people from the Olympics, we should be 100% fair. No biological advantages allowed!

2-meter-tall basketball player? No way, that’s unfair.

That gymnast with hyper-mobility? BOO. Unfair.

Usain Bolt with the gene ensuring the composition of his muscles? How dare he?

Believe or not, the professional sport is based on anomalies and mutation. That’s the selection. It sucks and it’s not fair but it is what it is.

Also, having these mutations doesn’t mean you’re automatically great at sports - I’m shit at gymnastics while being hypermobile as fuck. So it’s still unfair even to us expressing these traits, lol.

There are XY AFAB women!!!

This happens during the pregnancy if the child has male chromosomes but there is not enough male hormones in the development of the baby resulting in the baby being assigned female at birth. It’s a form of intersex, but there is literally no physical difference between such child and XX AFAB baby.

Those are cis women. Not trans men. Not even trans men.

The people screaming about the Olympics being a disgrace and the proof of collapse of the society are literally the people who are usually like “there are two genders based on what’s in their pants”. Now it’s the chromosomes you’re checking?

Maybe you are an XY-woman, maybe your sister is. You don’t know.

Stop using biology for spreading misinformation about intersex people, transgender people and women in general.

[todaysbird]

this green honeycreeper exhibits a genetic mutation known as bilateral gynandromorphism, where one half of the body is male and one half is female. the bird was spotted in the wild in columbia; researchers suspect the bird is not able to reproduce, but appears to be in good health. they are the second known example of a bilateral gynandromorph green honeycreeper; the last was recorded over 100 years ago.

[cannedpeachess]

No because the way I get so VISCERALLY angry when someone refers to an animal as albino when they’re actually leucistic, erythristic, or xanthochromatic is both deeply irrational and greatly unhealthy

ALBINISM

Total loss of melanin in the body, i.e. skin, hair/fur/feathers, and eyes (the eyes look pink/red because the lack of melanin in the eye exposes the blood vessels within it to light, which then reflects their red hue)

LEUCISM

Partial loss of melanin in the body; the pattern of melanin distribution is unique in each case, so some people or animals with this condition may have patches of typically-colored skin/hair/fur in addition to pigmented eyes, while others may only have the aforementioned ocular pigmentation

ERYTHRISM

Abnormal prevalence of reddish pigment in the skin/hair/fur/feathers of an animal; concentration of this pigment varies case by case, so humans/animals with the condition can present anywhere from only slightly pink to intensely red in color; to my knowledge, the condition does not affect the eyes

XANTHOCHROMISM

Abnormal prevalence of yellow pigment in the skin/hair/fur/feathers of an animal; similar to erythrism, color intensity can vary from light golden hues to deep yellows; again, to my knowledge, the condition does not affect the eyes

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[beakers-and-telescopes]

With the fast fashion industry… how it is… finding sustainable ways to make fabric is super important.  Fibers from synthetic fabrics make up 35% of the microplastics that make their way to the ocean.  Natural fibers sourced from plants or animals are much more environmentally sound options, including silk.

Currently, the only way to get natural silk on a large scale is to harvest it from silkworms.  You’ve probably heard about the strength and durability of spider silk (it is 6x stronger than Kevlar!) but as of yet there hasn’t been a good way of getting it.  Raising spiders the way people do silkworms isn’t really an option.  Spiders need a lot of room to build their webs compared to silkworms, and individual spiders don’t produce that much silk.  Plus, when you put a whole bunch of spiders in captivity together, they tend to start eating each other.

Attempts to artificially recreate spider silk have also been less than successful.  Spider silk has a surface layer of glycoproteins and lipids on it that works as a sort of anti-aging “skin”- allowing the silk to withstand conditions such as sunlight and humidity.  But this layer has been very tricky to reproduce.

However, as scientists in China realized, silkworms produce that same kind of layer on their silk.  So what if we just genetically modified silkworms to produce spider silk?

That is exactly what the researchers at Donghua University in Shanghai did.  A team of researchers introduced spider silk protein genes to silkworms using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and microinjections in silkworm eggs.  In addition to this, they altered the spider silk proteins so that they would interact properly with the other proteins in silkworm glands.  And it worked!  This is the first study ever to produce full length spider silk proteins from silkworms.

The applications of this are incredibly exciting.  In addition to producing comfortable textiles and new, innovative bulletproof vests, silkworm generated spider silk could be used in cutting edge smart materials or even just to create better performing sutures.  In the future, this team intends to research how to modify this new spider silk to be even stronger, and they are confident that “large-scale commercialization is on the horizon."

[hellsitegenetics]

Dear Hellsites Genetics,

I love all the hard work you do and I really appreciate it. I'm currently learning biology and I'm starting to get really into it. I hope that you are well all the time, and that you have all the luck and happiness in your future. You inspired me to study biology, and I'm really grateful for it. Thank you once again!

With love and respect,

An anonymous amino acid creature

String identified: a t Gtc,

a t a a a acat t. ' ct ag g a ' tatg t gt a t t. tat a a t t, a tat a a t c a a t. t t g, a ' a gat t. Ta c aga!

t a ct,

A a a ac cat

Closest match: Plasmodium sp. DRC-Itaito genome assembly, chromosome: 10 Common name: Unclassified Malaria-Causing Parasite

(image source) Note: this image is not of the same organism, but of P. falciparum, which is of the same genus.

[antifainternational]

TFW when you're a white supremacist and science keeps disproving that your European ancestors were white.