UC Davis

Manipulating microbes has helped human civilization for millennia, since we started using yeast to make bread and booze. In a modern breakthrough, scientists have created semi-living “cyborg cells” that can survive in environments natural cells can’t.

In a world-first clinical trial, three babies have been born after receiving stem cell treatment for spina bifida. A stem cell patch is applied to the fetus’ spine while still developing in the womb, and early results are promising one year on.

Some 180 million years ago, there lived an early mammal – built a lot like the guilty looking fella above – that became the earliest-known ancestor to all mammals on Earth, from the blue whale, to the camel, the rhino, the koala, and your good self.

An international team of scientists has published the first complete, gap-free sequence of the human genome. The new reference genome adds hundreds of millions of base pairs to earlier drafts, filling in crucial gaps to improve studies of disease.

Future astronauts could eat salads containing genetically engineered lettuce to get their dose of a drug designed to ward off the effects of weightlessness on bone loss.

Spawning in captivity can be hard on abalone, as aquaculture operators have to periodically yank the molluscs off the insides of their tanks to inspect their gonads. Things could soon get kinder and gentler, however, thanks to the use of ultrasound.

The DNA mutations that drive evolution are generally thought to be random, but a new study suggests otherwise. Comparing the genomes of plants grown in a lab, scientists found mutations are far less likely to occur in genes essential for survival.

When it comes to keeping things cold, ice cubes are hard to beat … although the things do melt. Scientists have set about addressing that limitation, with reusable water-based "jelly ice cubes" that hold their shape at all temperatures.

It may seem like a basic color, but blue is actually rather rare in the natural world. That complicates the search for natural blue food colorings, but now a team of scientists has found a promising candidate hiding in red cabbage.

Cattle are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly due to their methane-loaded burps. A detailed new study has found more evidence that feeding cows a small seaweed supplement can greatly reduce their methane emissions.

In April 2020, a bull calf named Cosmo was born to a team of scientists. This probably wouldn’t normally be news except that this particular bouncing baby boy had his genome edited as an embryo, to make him more likely to produce male offspring.

A new method for determining the sex of human remains based on proteins extracted from tooth enamel has proven more reliable than those based on DNA or bone anatomy.