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Archive: Aug 2015

Nothing to Sneeze at: the Allergenicity of GMOs

by Charles Xu figures by Krissy Lyon Summary: People are concerned about the potential of GMO food to cause allergies. However, the technology used for making GMO crops does not necessarily make us more vulnerable than conventional breeding.…

GMOs and Pesticides: Helpful or Harmful?

by Jennifer Hsaio figures by Krissy Lyon Summary: Pesticides are ubiquitous. Because they are used in agriculture and food production, pesticides are present at low levels in many of our diets.  Less obvious is the fact that many people use pesticides…

Why Roundup Ready Crops Have Lost their Allure

by Jordan Wilkerson figures by Brian Chow Summary: In the history of agriculture, no technology has been adopted so quickly and completely as genetically engineered crops. Particularly useful crops are ones that have an engineered resistance to…

How to Make a GMO

by Chelsea Powell figures by Anna Maurer Summary: Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are organisms that have been altered using genetic engineering methods. Although genetic engineering is a common and essential practice in biotechnology, its…

The long awaited and much debated discovery of the pentaquark

The pentaquark consists of four quarks, and one anti-quark. It is possible that the quarks are not all tightly bound together, as in this image, but consist of a structure that is closer to that of a hadron and meson bound like a moleculeImage uploaded…

Epiboly

After the initial phase of rapid cell divisions, vertebrate embryos must go through a variety of cell movements to form the primary axis of the body and arrange cells to give rise to different tissues.  Here an embryo of the Discus fish (Symphysodon…