Unwind The Helix

Dr. Niederman For an upcoming assignment we are interviewing scientists about their work. In my last year of University I had to confront the research requirement and finally got hold of Dr. Niederman, a professor in the microbio and biochem department.­­ I had been emailing several different labs for months and remembered that my friend had been working with Dr. Niederman. I showed my interests, and got set up in the lab in the first week of the semester, although I had to change my schedule to also include his solar energy class. It took a lot for me to get out of my comfort zone to apply but he has been very helpful and accommodating, along with the other undergrads working alongside him. Chemical pathway of the photosystems of purple photosynthetic bacteria ­Dr. Niederman’s research is primarily concerned with the application of purple photosynthetic bacteria to generate electric currents and biofuels. In addition to the papers I was given to read for lab, the ...

Illustration of Tasmanian tiger from Natural Geographic New studies recently uncovered an intact genome of a recently declared extinct species of marsupial called the Tasmanian tigers, this discovery has led to new information related to natural extinction. The research, “Secrets from Beyond Extinction: The Tasmanian Tiger” , conducted in association with the University of Melbourne describes the university’s effort to reestablish a currently extinct species. After being hunted to near extinction, museums everywhere began searching for specimen to be put on display. Decades later with the advancement of genetic techniques and the development of cloning, Professor Andrew Pask put together a team of scientists to comb their records for intact, well preserved samples of the Tasmanian tiger. The article remarks on the successes of preserving and sequencing the genome of a sample of a Tasmanian tiger pup, which went extinct over a century ago. Acquiring an intact genome is the first s...

Artist's (mine) rendition of the marbled crayfish   First of all, hello and welcome to my blog “Unwind the Helix”. The goal of this blog is loosely to discuss recent events in the world of biology, genetics, and evolution. While working on a full length piece on conservation and our role in the ecosystem, I came across a news article discussing the marbled crayfish, “ Geneticists Unravel Secrets of Super-invasive Crayfish ”. The main reason for this sensationalist title is due to the origin of this species and the unique traits they picked up. Photograph: Fredrik von Erichsen It is thought that this relatively new species was first observed/ created in the 90’s in a tank in Germany when two distant crayfish species accidentally happened to breed. The resultant mixed crayfish has three sets of chromosomes, as opposed to humans and most other animals (tripoid vs diploid), and is able to breed by itself, a trait called parthenogenesis. Because it can effectively clo...