The Blog of Science

Hair is one of the first things police investigators look for when searching for evidence at a crime scene because DNA can be recovered from it, and DNA can lead the officers to convict or clear a suspect. In most cases, hair strands are recovered within a few days and DNA is still in good […]

What are stem cells?
The vast majority of our cells are in a state known as ‘differentiated’, which means that they cannot change their cell type. For example, a neuron cannot change into a blood cell, and a skin cell will not become a pancreatic cell. Cells become what they are during embryogenesis from ‘undifferentiated’, or […]

Research on stem cells is quickly generating promising avenues for the treatment of many illnesses that had no known cure so far. Briefly, scientists are trying to use stem cells to repair or replace cells lost or damaged by disease or congenital defects. Examples for the current targets of research are red and white blood […]

Knowing the gender of an unborn baby has been possible for a while now. Ultrasound is a technique widely available and used by millions of pregnant woman each year, at least in the Occidental world. Although typically associated with gender prediction, the ultrasound is actually employed to monitor several aspects of fetal development, being sex […]

Two years ago, scientists announced the completion of the chimpanzee genome and stunned the public opinion by showing that chimp’s DNA is 98% identical to ours. Being able to compare the human genome sequence with that of our closest living relative was very useful, but many questions can not be properly addressed without having […]

Predicting the baby’s gender
Knowing the gender of the baby is the first thing we think about when we learn we are having a child. Everybody knows that an ultrasound will give us the answer about the gender of the baby sooner or later, but not much earlier than week 20, exactly half way during […]