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11 votes
1 answer
3k views

What is the functional and structural distinction between core (H2A, H2B, H3,H4) and linker(H1/H5) histones?

Many explanations of histone biochemistry isn't quite elucidating for the undergraduate student. How does histone structure (dimers, octomers) relate to their specific functions as core or linker ...
LanceLafontaine's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why does polyploidy give an evolutionary advantage?

I would like to know what advantages polyploidy holds. I have come across a few examples during my research of polyploidy, for example human adults' hearts contain 27% diploid, 71% tetraploid and 2% ...
FloriOn's user avatar
  • 974
11 votes
1 answer
5k views

Did the eugenics program in Nazi Germany have a measurable effect? [closed]

Did the killing or sterilisation of people considered as living a "life unworthy of life" in Nazi Germany have any measurable effect on the "average health" of Germany? Is there any statistical ...
Orangenhain's user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
943 views

What kind of event would cause the current Mitochondrial Eve to be replaced by a new one?

Apparently all living humans are matrilineal descendants of a single woman who lived 200.000 years ago. She is called Mitochondrial Eve. But at the time she lived there was a different matrilineal ...
molf's user avatar
  • 213
11 votes
1 answer
152 views

Are homozygous carriers of the CCR5-Δ32 allele fully immune to all known strains of HIV?

Or is there documented evidence of even one homozygous carrier contracting HIV and staying infected?
mring's user avatar
  • 1,973
11 votes
2 answers
302 views

Have any genetically altered organisms actually become abundant in a natural environment?

Most of the things that come up in Google and Google Scholar for this question have a mostly/completely speculative tone, or at best use models instead of measurements. This report describes some ...
James's user avatar
  • 221
11 votes
2 answers
1k views

Books on machine learning applications in Biology

I have recently engaged with a collaboration, which requires me to construct, then train an unsupervised artificial neural network (ANN). However, I have only a very coarse understanding of what ...
hello_there_andy's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
445 views

What percentage of the fitness variance is explained by the 'n'- most important loci?

Introduction Standard models in population genetics look up at the evolution of few loci which impact fitness. The variance in fitness is determined by the genetic variance and the environmental ...
Remi.b's user avatar
  • 68.3k
10 votes
1 answer
1k views

Do I not have any alleles from my mom's mom & my dad's dad?

So, I have an XX, & I got an X from my mom, & an X from my dad. My dad would have gotten his only X from his mother, & my mother could have gotten the X I got from her father or mother. ...
Samantha Rizzo's user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
4k views

Can recessive alleles be expressed?

Say I have a disease that is autosomal recessive. If one was heterozygous for this trait, could the recessive gene still be expressed? I know sickle cell anemia has a heterozygous advantage so it ...
Michael Zheng's user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
677 views

Can any species be bred selectively/engineered to become as diverse looking as dogs?

I've done some research and it appears that dogs are the most diverse looking single species of mammals. The questions that interest me is - are dogs special in respect to genes/gene activation ...
Alex Stone's user avatar
  • 6,535
10 votes
3 answers
2k views

How close genetically is the most human-like chimpanzee to the most chimp-like human?

I understand that: Chimpanzees are the closest species to humans genetically. Only 1%-6% of their genes are different. Within any species there is genetic diversity, i.e. no two individuals have the ...
Justas's user avatar
  • 253
10 votes
3 answers
3k views

A free book/resource for learning genetics?

I took an undergrad class in genetics. I felt it was not too intensive and I do not feel prepared for grad school (if I can manage to get in.) Does anyone know of a preferably free resource for ...
Ro Siv's user avatar
  • 1,289
10 votes
3 answers
375 views

How is genetic speciation defined?

What determines speciation at a molecular level? At what point does a scientist determine two lineages are different enough to be considered separate species? Does it have a margin of error?
user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
15k views

What is the difference between "cistron" and "gene"?

I'm asking after reading the cognate wikipedia.en article on "cistron". I am still not sure about the difference between the two terms. To me it seems valid to picture a "cistron" as the genome wide ...
pidoretroma's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
7k views

What is Mendelian Randomization, and how is it used to infer causality in epidemiology?

Studies of human traits and diseases are inherently confined to observational studies, known as epidemiological studies. This can make it very hard to determine what actually causes a particular ...
Luke's user avatar
  • 6,269
10 votes
2 answers
546 views

Is there an "evolutionary species similarity calculator"?

Is there a website where I can input pairs of species and get an "evolutionary similarity score"? E.g. (numbers are completely made up) Input: Chimp and Human, Output: 97% Input: Cat and Human, ...
ripper234's user avatar
  • 201
10 votes
2 answers
1k views

How many gigabases of DNA are there on earth?

The human genome is about 770 MB, the C. elegans genome is about 100 MB, the yeast S. cerevisiae is about 12 MB. Different other genomes have been sequenced: how many GB of genomic DNA we have now? ...
Craig's user avatar
  • 276
10 votes
4 answers
405 views

Why are males more likely than females to have autism spectrum disorder?

The male to female ratio in autism spectrum disorder is around 4:1. However it seems ASD is not a simple X-linked disorder. Then how is it possible males are more susceptible than females, if the ...
tky's user avatar
  • 235
10 votes
3 answers
3k views

Are non-coding RNAs introns?

I am slightly confused as to what part of the genome codes for non-coding RNAs. Is it the introns? This would make sense to me as to why they are not transcribed as the introns are not transcribed. Or ...
Meep's user avatar
  • 2,979
10 votes
1 answer
6k views

Why should we use the NA12878 dataset for benchmarking?

As far as I understand, the human genome sample called NA12878 provides high confidence variants for a human sample. It is being used as a benchmark for many genomic research projects. Q: Why exactly ...
SmallChess's user avatar
  • 1,029
10 votes
2 answers
102k views

Why do ladybugs have a different number of points on their backs

Everytime I see a ladybug I ask myself this question. Why does every ladybug have a different amount of points on its back? Is it because of its age? Or because of its genes? Is it inheritable?
GlowingFeather's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
7k views

Which of the two chromosomes in a pair is expressed?

I have completely dummy question. I have 23 pairs of chromosomes in the cells 23 single coming from my mother and 23 single from my father. So how my cell choose which chromosome, mother's or father'...
saldenisov's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
493 views

Overlapping genetic information in eukaryotes

In my research, I look at a lot of gene predictions / annotations. Frequently, I see loci where multiple gene models overlap. I haven't taken a systematic approach to analyzing these cases, but I do ...
Daniel Standage's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
208 views

What causes cells to inactivate one X-chromosome?

Normally, when a cell has two X-chromosomes (female genome), one is randomly inactivated. How does the cell detect that there are two X-chromosomes in the first place? Is there some kind of protein ...
F16Falcon's user avatar
  • 662
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

Could a sperm be altered to contain a female's genetics?

While discussing with a friend a while back on the likelihood a futanari (a woman with both fully developed and functioning sets of genitalia) existing in real life, we got into a discussion of ...
Memor-X's user avatar
  • 321
10 votes
3 answers
33k views

What's the difference between shotgun sequencing and clone based sequencing?

In a lecture during my undergraduate degree we were introduced to the race to complete the human genome. Celera were competing with Sanger and collaborators to sequence the human genome. Celera ...
James's user avatar
  • 11.3k
10 votes
1 answer
2k views

Why Can't A Male Mule Have Offspring?

I've read that female mules can sometimes have offspring, but that male mules are incapable of doing so. Why is that the case? Is their sperm not capable of entering the egg or is their a genetic ...
kittycat's user avatar
  • 1,201
10 votes
2 answers
8k views

What determines testosterone exposure in womb, baby's genetics or mom's body?

I read this article which has the following quote: The ratio between index and ring finger is believed to be linked to exposure to the male hormone testosterone in the womb. And I wonder what ...
mring's user avatar
  • 1,973
10 votes
2 answers
296 views

What is the Edward O. Wilson fuss about?

I have just read this article on E. O. Wilson and I don't understand what the difference is between what he is arguing and "standard" natural selection. I read "the extended phenotype" some years ago ...
andrew cooke's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
6k views

Are there dog breeds that are so far apart genetically that they can't produce viable offspring?

Obviously, a very large dog would have difficulties mating with a very small dog and vice versa. But putting that problem aside (using, say, insemination), considering the large variation of dog ...
Zano's user avatar
  • 207
10 votes
1 answer
673 views

Can a Turner syndrome patient develop male characteristics artificially?

From an answer to the question Can stem cells from male convert to cells of female-only organs, and vice versa? Y chromosome is the sex determining chromosome with SRY gene that determines testes ...
another 'Homo sapien''s user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
473 views

Genetic Drift: Models, assumptions and empirical observations

There two main mathematical models to describe the process of genetic drift are Moran model and Wright-Fisher model. My questions concern the assumptions of these models, the existence of other ...
Remi.b's user avatar
  • 68.3k
10 votes
1 answer
8k views

How does plant grafting work?

Plant grafting is a process whereby a piece of one plant is inserted into another and results in a change of the original plant. For example, grafting a piece of a lemon tree into a bitter orange tree ...
terdon's user avatar
  • 12.9k
9 votes
4 answers
12k views

Is Chargaff's rule really applicable?

Chargaff's rules states that DNA from any cell of all organisms should have a 1:1 ratio (base Pair Rule) of pyrimidine and purine bases and, more specifically, that the amount of guanine is equal to ...
Tyto alba's user avatar
  • 8,798
9 votes
4 answers
1k views

Can sexual reproduction create new genetic information?

Is there a small chance that in sexual reproduction a new allele forms in the off-spring that was not present in either of the parents, or are the alleles in the offspring always from at least one of ...
Kenshin's user avatar
  • 2,078
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

What if target DNA doesn’t have restriction sites

All the examples on DNA cloning I have encountered have assumed that the target gene and vector both have compatible restriction sites at just the right locations (probably for ease of explanation). ...
dkapur17's user avatar
  • 201
9 votes
2 answers
158 views

How would you use readthrough as part of a genetic circuit design?

Traditionally, in synthetic biology, researchers tried to avoid some transcription phenomena (like roadblocking of tandem promoters or readthrough of weak terminators) since they are not in line with ...
Pedro Fontanarrosa's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
15k views

What makes a gene dominant or recessive [duplicate]

We all carry two copies of each gene (outside of male sex chromosomes). If the two differ from each other often one is dominant and one recessive. How does this mechanism work on a molecular level? ...
interguru's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
2k views

The genetic and physiological origins of laughter?

This Wikipedia article defines laughter in many terms, such as... "a visual expression of happiness, or an inward feeling of joy" and "a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping ...
LanceLafontaine's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
843 views

Does DNA contain information beyond protein synthesis?

It's well known that genetic information is stored in DNA. As far as I know, DNA only has information at the protein level. What about higher levels, such as organelles, cells, tissue, organs? Is ...
S. Robert James's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
198 views

What is the effective relatedness of inbreeding?

If a human inbreeds with a relative, how distant does the relative have to be before the homozygosity in the child is no higher than if the mate were randomly chosen from the global population?
Matthew Piziak's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
2k views

How is incomplete dominance explained at the molecular level?

What happens at the molecular level between two alleles that demonstrate incomplete dominance? Do the proteins coded by each allele have different functions, or is there an interaction at the RNA ...
ANASWAR S R's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
1k views

Are STOP codons impacted by base insertion or deletion mutation?

I am learning about base insertion and deletion mutations. An example in my textbook is given below. GUU CCA CAU AUC. So if there is an insertion (of guanine): GUU GCC ACA UAU C_ _ (there will be a ...
Christopher Uren's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
223 views

Relative Property of Alleles

If there are three different alleles to a gene, is it possible that the first is dominant to the second, but recessive to the third?
Graviton's user avatar
  • 243
9 votes
1 answer
4k views

Fisher's Geometric Model for Dummies

Fisher's geometric model is still today one of the most important and fundamental model in evolutionary biology but it seems to me that most student in evolutionary biology don't really understand it (...
Remi.b's user avatar
  • 68.3k
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Finding DNA from Amino Acid sequence problem

My attempt: First I took the single letter AA codes and made them amino acids. So, the first one is Trp which is 5'-UGG-3'. From this I got the DNA sequence 3'-CCA-5'. However, the correct answer (...
Kirby's user avatar
  • 1,319
9 votes
3 answers
501 views

Splice in with CRISPR/Cas

I need to splice a gene into a human cell genome, with highest rate possible. I mean, doesn't really matter where the gene enters, nor does it matter if some cells die as a result of this. CRISPR ...
Robertos's user avatar
  • 1,442
9 votes
1 answer
11k views

What is a focal copy number variation?

Often, genetics studies, especially genome wide ones, talk about "focal copy number variations" in genes or regions of the chromosome. I know what a copy number variation is. What does "focal" mean, ...
Superbest's user avatar
  • 4,540
9 votes
2 answers
237 views

Virus that can enter all cell types

As I understand, each virus type can enter a particular cell type. For example HIV can enter CD4 & CD8 cells, while HBV can enter liver cells, some other viruses can enter other cell types like ...
joe's user avatar
  • 945

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