Celery Rose

After being picked, if given proper care, a rose might last about two weeks before wilting. Petal blight - the reason for wilting - is caused by invading fungal pathogens that produce a sugar alcohol called mannitol, which breaks down the flower's defense system. It turns out that the enzyme mannitol dehydrogenase, found abundantly in celery, improves the life of rose petals when the gene responsible for its production is spliced into the rose genome. North Carolina State's Dr. Dole and Dr. Williamson are leading the research aiming to create a hybrid rose that is more resistant to disease.

The roses won't smell or feel any different, the only thing that should change is their vase life. "This gene is naturally found in many plants, but it's uncertain whether the rose already has it," said Williamson. "If it does, it doesn't produce enough enzyme to help the plant fight against petal blight." The team is also studying the type of sugar-water mixture that would best suit the rose after being harvested.

Ultimately, they are hoping to double the survival time of your generic flower shop rose. This could have a huge impact on the flower industry, especially when you consider that 1.2 billion rose stems are sold within the USA annually.

GM Mosquito To Stop Dengue

The human death toll caused by disease-carrying mosquitoes has risen. Currently over 2 million of the 700 million people infected by mosquitoes die annually. Scientists have attempted to control these mosquito populations using a range of methods including chemicals, lasers and radiation. Now the results have been released from a new experiment that some have called "birth control for insects", which involves the first ever release of genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild.

Due to the fact that the female mosquitoes are responsible for biting and transmitting diseases like the untreatable dengue fever, scientists considered introducing males sterilized by a genetic mutation as a tool to dramatically decrease the population.

From May to October of this year Oxitec, the Oxford-based research firm, released sterilized male mosquitoes 3 times per week in a 40-acre region of The Cayman Islands. Upon mating with a sterile male, the female would produce no offspring, in turn shrinking the next generation's population. This Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) has been used in the past, but the insects have always been rendered sterile using radiation, rather than by a genetic modification. Using this new method, by August there was an 80% drop in the mosquito population within that region.

Releasing transgenic animals into the wild is cause for concern to many environmentalists who fear that killing off an entire mosquito population could harm dependent species higher on the food chain. Oxitic insists the method is safe and will not have any permanent ecological impact since the sterilizing gene can't be passed on to future generations. The introduction of competitive species has gone awry in the past, like the disaster after Cane Toads were brought to Australia.

Another Feat!

When doctors performed a standard MRI scan on three-day old Sam Esquibel, they were definitely not ready for what they would find. What looked like a microscopic brain tumor forming, was actually a nearly perfectly formed foot and partial formation of another foot, a hand, and a thigh. A case like this has been given the name "foetus in foetu", which is a twin beginning to form within its sibling, and is rarely seen.

Mr Dominic Thompson, a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, said there were probably less than 100 recorded cases of foetus in foetu in the medical literature. Sam was operated on without any problems, and all that is remaining of this little foot, is a little scar.

An Eye Opening Genetic Malformation

During the development of an embryo there are many critical processes simultaneously at work , including body axis specification and formation of functional organs. Another important element is the development of the head, arguably the most anatomically sophisticated region of the body. On rare occasions craniofacial malformations will occur, resulting in disorders that have many potential origins, including abnormalities of brain patterning, of the migration and fusion of tissues in the face, and of bone differentiation in the skull.

Holoprosencephaly (HPE) refers to a range of problems involving the malformation of the brain and upper face along the midline. In the most moderate of circumstances, the signs of HPE are as subtle as one single central incisor, shown above on the left. The most extreme end of the spectrum can be associated with midline cleft lip, cyclopia, and an overlying proboscis, shown above on the right. The proboscis, which is the build-up of tissue seen above the eyes, forms because of the obstruction by the central eye. It is made up of frontonasal neural-crest cells that would have normally migrated between the eyes to form the nose and upper lip.

This is extremely rare in live births (~1 in 15,000), but is more commonly detected in early pregnancies (1 in 250); however almost all affected fetuses are miscarried. The cause of these deformities is thought to be due to mutations in the SHH gene. Source of pictures and information: Wilkie et. al (2001) Genetics of Cranofacial Development and Malformation, Nature Reviews Genetics, Volume 2; 458-468.

Cloning The Frozen

A team of Japanese geneticists used cells from a dead mouse frozen for 16 years and successfully created healthy clones. They took dead brain and blood cells from the frozen mice, and injected the nuclei from them directly into unfertilized mouse eggs. By extracted inner cell mass from each embryo, they generated embryonic stem cells. Eventually they were able to produce 13 mouse pups. The nuclei from these cells were then transferred into mouse eggs, resulting in the production of healthy pups.

"But in dead cells the cell membrane is broken and the fusion method cannot be used for cloning. In our method, it does not matter whether the donor cells are alive or dead," Wakayama explained.

The technique could eventually lead to the resurrection of extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth, scientists stated in November 2008.

Baby In The Mail

Thirty four year old Thomas Beatie, the world's first pregnant man, has given birth to a baby girl in Oregon. How could a man be pregnant you ask? Well "Mr." Beatie was born a woman, but underwent gender realignment surgery, so now he is legally considered to be male. He was able to conceive because he kept his female organs during the sex change operation.

“Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights,” he writes. “Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire but a human desire.”

As expected, this whole ordeal has garnered much attention. Mr. Beatie announced his pregnancy in April on the Oprah Winfrey show. He also plans to write a book about the entire experience. A hospital source said that the baby is healthy and the mother/father has been permitted to leave the hospital.

Fastest Evolving Animal

This is New Zealand's "living dinosaur" known as the tuatara. This creature is the only surviving member of a reptilian order Sphehodontia that lived with early dinosaurs and separated from other reptiles 200 million years ago in the Upper Triassic period.

A recent study by Professor David Lambert and his team from the Allan Wilson Center for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, examined DNA sequences from 8000 year old bones of ancient tuatara. Although the tuatara have remained physically unchanged over long periods of evolution, they are evolving at a DNA level faster than any other animal examined.

The tuatara rate is significantly faster than for animals including the cave bear, lion, ox and horse. Professor Lambert said: "What we found is that the tuatara has the highest molecular evolutionary rate that anyone has measured."

Pet Cloning

Born in 2005, this Afghan Hound was cloned from adult cells by somatic nuclear cell transfer. An empty donor egg was taken from a mixed-breed bitch, and the DNA was taken from the skin cells of the to-be-cloned dog. The egg cell and DNA were then fused together and cultured to trigger embryo growth. The growing egg was then implanted into a Labrador surrogate mother. That's how Snuppy came to be.

That was in 3 years ago, and since Snuppy is still healthy, a new service is appearing. The South Korean biotech company: RNL Bio, affiliated with the Seoul National University lab, is offering dog owners the chance to clone their pets.

Earlier this year, a woman from California wanted her recently deceased pitbull terrier Booger to be recreated. They charged the woman $150,000 and used tissue extracted from its ear before it died.