At first, ancient squirrel poop may not sound like an important scientific discovery. However, frozen droppings from Arctic ground squirrels in the Yukon are giving researchers a surprisingly detailed look into ecosystems that existed up to 700,000 years ago. Preserved in deep permafrost, these droppings, called coprolites, contain ancient environmental DNA from plants, insects, microbes, and large Ice Age animals. Researchers studied frozen ground squirrel burrows from the Y

Did you know hemophilia B is also called Christmas disease? Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Christmas. Stephen Christmas a 5-year old boy, born in England in 1947, used to get bruised easily and had been hospitalized nine times for hematomas i.e. his blood would collect outside a blood vessel. Initially he was diagnosed with classic hemophilia amongst variety of other conditions. But researchers looking into his case found that he lacked the clotting factor IX n

In our modern society, we have come to take technology, and the materials that make it up, for granted. Despite our marvelous inventions as a species, there are many occasions when we forget what we might define as biological nature, and more than just a metaphor, what I mean by this is that it is curious that many things we use daily without a second thought are the result of highly complex industrial processes that clearly involve raw materials; in the case of our electroni

What is Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy? Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive genetic neuromuscular disorder primarily affects males. It is the most common type of muscular dystrophy with one in 3,500 new born males developing DMD worldwide. Females inherit the defective gene and pass it on, thereby serving as carriers. The average age of diagnosis is 5 years. Cause of DMD: The missing muscle protein DMD is causes by a genetic mutation in the DMD gene, located