Chances are, if you're reading this, you'll know about DNA, and the 4 bases that are used to make it in very nearly every organism on earth ever: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. So you'll understand what it means when I say that in June 2011 a group of scientists managed to evolve a culture of E.Coli that doesn't use thymine. Or even Uracil. What does this mean in terms of medical progress? To be quite honest, I'm not sure. I suppose it shows the extent to which we can play around with the molecules of living things, which will be integral to medicine in the next century, in my humble opinion. Also in genetics that month, research was published that demonstrated the use of enzymes packaged in virus shells to "repair" the DNA in the liver of haemophilic mice, which reduced the effects. Slightly. Well, watch this space.
Evolution had its fair share of the limelight for a second month running, with yeast having been shown to evolve to a multi-cellular organism in the lab in about 350 generations, selecting for organisms that clumped together using a centrifuge. After 60 days, one of the cultures was forming structures where all the cells were joined together, with the same DNA, working together. These findings shed light on the mysterious leap from single celled organisms to multi-cellular life forms.
In other science: the world's first biological fuel cell is made, 2 elements join the periodic table, worms are found to live in near-anaerobic conditions, type 2 diabetes was reversed in 7 out of 11 patients on a 600 calorie per day diet for 8 weeks, and the war on anti-bitoic resistant bacteria advances.
