This shows cerebral arterial circulation showing the left brain hemisphere of a C57BL/6 mouse and the right hemisphere of BALB/c mouse. Note the difference typical for these strains in number of collaterals (red stars).

Chapel Hill, NC (Scicasts) – Researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) have uncovered the genetic architecture which controls the growth of the "back-up" blood vessels that can provide oxygen to starved tissues in the event of a heart attack or stroke – also known as collateral circulation.

Houston, TX (Scicasts) - The most robust statistical examination to date of our species' genetic links to "mitochondrial Eve" -- the maternal ancestor of all living humans -- confirms that she lived about 200,000 years ago. The Rice University study was based on a side-by-side comparison of 10 human genetic models that each aim to determine when Eve lived using a very different set of assumptions about the way humans migrated, expanded and spread across Earth.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY (Scicasts) -  Chronic pain is a serious medical problem, afflicting approximately 20% of adults. Some individuals are more susceptible than others, and the basis for this remains largely unknown. In a report published online today in Genome Research (http://www.genome.org), researchers have identified a gene associated with susceptibility to chronic pain in humans, signalling a significant step toward better understanding and treating the condition.

St. Paul, MN (Scicasts) - A new study shows a gene variant may increase the severity of multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms. The research is published in the August 3, 2010, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Princeton, NJ (Scicasts) – Seemingly redundant portions of the fruit fly genome may not be so redundant after all, according to a report from Princeton University. New findings from a Princeton-led team of researchers suggest that repeated instructional regions in the flies' DNA may contribute to normal development under less-than-ideal growth conditions by making sure that genes are turned on and off at the appropriate times. If similar regions are found in humans, they may hold important clues to understanding developmental disorders.

Ann Arbor, MI (Scicasts) - Researchers have identified a gene mutation that causes a rare form of hearing loss known as auditory neuropathy, according to U-M Medical School scientists.

Baltimore, Maryland (Scicasts) - By inspecting the sequence of all 3 billion "letters" that make up the genome of a single person affected with a rare, inherited disorder, a Johns Hopkins and Duke University team ferreted out the single genetic mutation that accounts for the disease.

Buffalo, NY (Scicasts) - Modern marsupials may be popular animals at the zoo and in children's books, but new findings by University at Buffalo biologists reveal that they harbour a "fossil" copy of a gene that codes for filoviruses, which cause Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fevers and are the most lethal viruses known to humans.

Ann Arbor, MI (Scicasts) - An international team co-led by scientists from the University of Michigan have discovered 12 more regions on the genome with DNA variants that are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, bringing the number to 38.

This is a fluorescence image of a Caulobacter crescentus biofilm. Cells are labeled in red, holdfasts are labeled in blue, and eDNA is labeled in green (appears yellow when superimposed within the red band of cells). Around the biofilm, individual cells can be seen, in some cases attached to each other by holdfasts coated by eDNA (green).

Bloomington, IN (Scicasts) - The deaths of nearby relatives has a curious effect on the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus -- surviving cells lose their stickiness. Indiana University Bloomington biologists report in an upcoming issue of Molecular Microbiology that exposure to the extracellular DNA (eDNA) released by dying neighbours stops the sticky holdfasts of living Caulobacter from adhering to surfaces, preventing cells from joining bacterial biofilms. Less sticky cells are more likely to escape established colonies, out to where conditions may be better.

Leicester, UK (Scicasts) – According to a report from the University of Leicester, researchers at the Institute have demonstrated that movable sequences of DNA, which give rise to genetic variability and sometimes cause specific diseases, are far more common than previously thought.

Hinxton, UK (Scicasts) - Leading scientists from the public efforts to map the human genome this month celebrated a decade of discovery since the announcement of the first draft ten years ago. And in a dramatic sign of the rapid progress being made, they launched the UK 10,000 Genomes Project.

Heidelberg, Germany (Scicasts) - Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Max-Planck Institute of Immunobiology Freiburg have identified a novel protein complex that regulates around 4000 genes in the fruit fly Drosophila and likely plays an important role in mammals, too. Published June 25, 2010 in Molecular Cell, their findings explain how another regulatory protein can lead a double life.

Mountain View, CA (Scicasts) - 23andMe, a personal genetics company, has announced that it has published the first data to come out of its novel participant-driven research program. The results, available online in the journal PLoS Genetics, replicate several known genetic associations, validating 23andMe's methodology and ushering in an era of more efficient genetic research.

Boston, MA (Scicasts) -- The central dogma of molecular biology, as proposed in 1970 by Francis Crick and James Watson, holds that genetic information is transferred from DNA to functional proteins by way of messenger RNA (mRNA). This suggests that mRNA has but a single role, that being to encode for proteins.

Switzerland (Scicasts) - The results of the sequencing and analysis of the human body louse genome, which were published on June 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), offer new insights into the intriguing biology of this disease-vector insect. The project involved more than 70 international scientists led by Professor Evgeny Zdobnov at the University of Geneva Medical School and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, with Professor Barry Pittendrigh at the University of Illinois and Professor Ewen Kirkness at the J. Craig Venter Institute.

Durham NC and Baltimore, MD (Scicasts) - Using new, whole-genome sequencing technology coupled with classic methods of genetic investigation, scientists at Duke University, along with colleagues at Johns Hopkins, have discovered two mutations in the same gene that seem to cause metachondromatosis in humans.

Blacksburg, VA (Scicasts) - An international team of researchers led by scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech have sequenced the genome of an Amerindian strain of the gastric bug Helicobacter pylori, confirming the out-of-Africa migration of this bacterial stowaway to the New World. Experiments in animals have highlighted how specific genes in the bacterial strain may be crucial to the onset of inflammation and disease.

Durham, NC (Scicasts) - Humans did not invent the wheel. Nature did. According to a Duke University engineer, while the evolution from the Neolithic solid stone wheel with a single hole for an axle to the sleek wheels of today's racing bikes can be seen as the result of human ingenuity, it also represents how animals, including humans, have come to move more efficiently and quicker over millions of years on Earth.

Oxford, UK (Scicasts) - Oxford Gene Technology (OGT), provider of clinical genetics and diagnostic solutions to advance molecular medicine, has announced that its CytoSure Interpret Software can now seamlessly transfer array comparative genomic hybridisation (aCGH) aberration data directly to Cartagenia’s Bench constitutional cytogenetics platform. This helps cytogeneticists accurately correlate genotypic findings with known clinical phenotypes.