Have you ever wondered just what exactly is in that fancy protein nutrition bar? Would you like to know more about DNA than the actors on CSI who pretend to solve crimes with it ? Have you ever wondered what all your aunt Thelma’s prescriptions are doing on a cellular level? Have you ever wanted to learn what all this gene therapy brouhaha is really about? Do you like tacos? (jk that has nothing to do with it)… If you’ve answered “yes” to any of the above questions and have always wanted to learn more about biology without carrying around [...]

It seems like every year, another new kind of RNA is discovered. We now have a plethora of RNAs, each with their own not-very-informative abbreviations: mRNA, tRNA, rRNA, siRNA, miRNA, piRNA, snoRNA, nanoRNA, not to mention RNAi. It can be hard to keep up with, even for people who are involved in the field. But it is becoming increasingly clear that these various forms of RNA are incredibly important in regulating gene expression. In this episode of the podcast, we’ll be discussing a group of RNAs called “small RNAs”. Of course, saying “small RNAs” is kind of like saying “large [...]

Like most good things in life; the genetic code is not quite as simple as it seems (Just in case you thought 3 billion base pairs coding for 20 different amino acids via multiple, degenerative, triplicate groups, among numerous non-coding intervening regulatory sequences was really just too “simple”). Have you ever wondered how your skin cells and neuronal cells could have the same DNA in them, yet look and behave so differently? Have you ever imagined how nearly 6 feet of DNA could be neatly crammed into each cell nucleus better than clowns in a clown-car? Have you ever pondered [...]

Every few years, a case of Mad Cow Disease will appear somewhere in the world and cause panic. This past April, a cow in California tested positive for the disease. The California Department of Agriculture assures us that the case was caught well before it made its way into the food supply and that it was an isolated case, but you still have to wonder where the disease came from, and if there are some undiagnosed cows out there. Why is the threat of Mad Cow so scary? Mad Cow Disease, also called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), is a prion [...]