Understanding how blood cells are formed is not only important for developing treatments against numerous diseases, but also teaches us more about the fascinating process of turning stem cells into their specialized descendants. Recent work suggests that the initial stem cell that produces all of our blood’s formed elements (cells) comes in two flavors. But [...]
I love showing students new research that will ultimately lead to a revision in their textbooks. Hey, something has got to make purchasing a new edition every two to three years seem worthwhile. And it is even more fun when these research headlines come out as we are covering that very topic in class. A [...]
We form our conscious sense of vision using the occipital lobe of our cerebrum, the uppermost portion of the brain that has increased in size during mammalian (and independently in bird) evolution. Other vertebrates rely more heavily on other regions of the brain, especially the midbrain, to process sight. We still use a [...]
Actually not easy to do. Those little guys do not normally have elevated cholesterol levels and their arteries stay unclogged. But with a little genetic engineering you can knockout the gene for the protein apolipoprotein E, which plays a role in clearing bad cholesterol – LDL – from the blood. The result is high levels [...]
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