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Scientists have known for decades that genes called transposons can jump around the genome, but it can be dangerous, especially in cells that produce eggs and sperm. To ensure the integrity of these cells, nature developed a mechanism to quash this genetic scrambling, but how it works has remained a mystery. Now a team of scientists, including researchers at the Department of Embryology, has identified a key protein that suppresses jumping genes in mice and found that the protein is vital to sperm formation.

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Evolution isn’t just for living organisms. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found that the mineral kingdom co-evolved with life, and that up to two thirds of the more than 4,000 known types of minerals on Earth can be directly or indirectly linked to biological activity. The finding, published in American Mineralogist*, could aid scientists in the search for life on other planets.

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Scientists, including Global Ecology’s Joe Berry, may have overcome a major hurdle to calculating how much carbon dioxide is absorbed and released by plants, vital information for determining the amount of carbon that can be safely emitted by human activities. The problem is that ecosystems simultaneously take up and release CO₂. The key finding is that the compound carbonyl sulfide, which plants consume in tandem with CO₂, can be used to quantify gas flow into the plants during photosynthesis. more »

Astronomers have seen the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but until now no one has witnessed a star dying in real time. While looking at another object in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, using NASA’s orbiting Swift telescope, Carnegie-Princeton fellows* Alicia Soderberg and Edo Berger detected an extremely luminous blast of X-rays released by a supernova explosion. They alerted 8 other orbiting and on-ground telescopes to turn their eyes on this first-of-its-kind event.

Like most sciences, biology is inundated with data. However, researchers, including Sue Rhee at Plant Biology, warn in a Nature feature that the avalanche of biological information is at the point where the discipline may be unable to reach its full potential without improvements for curating data into on-line databases. The piece outlines specific remedies to harness the information overload. more »