Lewis Wolpert once famously stated “”It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation, which is truly the most important time in your life.”
What is Gastrulation?
During early development in majority of animals, the morphology of the embryo is dramatically reorganized by cell migration and this is termed as Gastrulation. During gastrulation, many cells which are near the surface of the embryo move to a new, more interior location.The main purpose of gastrulation is to position the 3 embryonic germ layers, the endoderm, ectoderm and mesoderm. ( See animations of gastrulation ) The actual name of gastrulation was first used by Ernst Haeckel in 1872 and the names of ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm were named by Sir Ray Lankester.
Gastrulation is observed in many phyla and The process of gastrulation in Drosophila begins with the invagination of the mesoderm on the ventral side of the blastoderm stage embryo. (more…)
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A team of IBM Researchers is exploring new and innovative ways to quickly read human DNA
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 jointly to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people laugh, and then make them think.
“Ardi” is the nickname given to a partial skeleton of a female
Finally i am back here on Hoxful Monsters after being away for almost two months. These 60 days were hectic as i was busy with my thesis writing and later with defense, which took place on December 10, 2009. I am really happy to inform you all that i successfully defended my thesis and subsequently awarded PhD by Université de la Méditerranée. I take this opportunity to thank entire group of Yacine Graba and Jacques Pradel ( Marseille Ibdml) .I owe a lot to entire team of ( 2001-2005) of LS Shashidhara and Rakesh Mishra ( CCMB, Hyderabad) for teaching me basics of Drosophila genetics and encouraging me to pursue my PhD. I would always remain grateful to my family back home in India and all my friends who stood by me in tough times by showing immense faith in my abilities. (more…)
The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, 972 km west of continental Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature.
The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years.
The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. (more…)
This Show attempts to explain our deep psychological questions such as, why we exist, why we try to stay alive and how we try to understand planets, other ecosystems, environment and species. From explaining the misconceived bacterial sludge to deep sea chemosynthesis, or from the theory of comets, volcanoes and an explosion bigger than all nuclear forces, this documentary, hosted by Bill Nye, is an important summary of popular and common science theories. This documentary discusses such topics as Charles Walcott’s analysis of the Burgess Shale; the Linnaean classification system; Darwin’s theory of natural selection; Donald Johanson’s “Lucy”; Mary Leakey’s Laetoli footprints; and Michel Brunet’s Toumai skull.”
A good priest who left his mark as a great scientist by exploring the miracle of heredity. A brilliant researcher, her work largely ignored by her male colleagues, until a revolutionary breakthrough. This is a spellbinding journey to find the common thread of molecules that define the biology of life. An unprecedented collaboration of scientific minds and willpower to solve the mystery of what makes us human. These are the greatest discoveries in the history of genetics.
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This is a discovery that contributes to our understanding of how distant human relatives evolved. Announced in 2001, the fossil skull was described as Kenyanthropus platyops – Flat Face Man of Kenya.
As rates of obesity, diabetes, and related disorders have reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. in recent years, scientists are working from many angles to pinpoint the causes and contributing factors involved in this public health crisis. While sedentary lifestyles and diets high in sugar and fat contribute significantly to the rise in diabetes rates, genetic factors may make some people more vulnerable than others to developing diabetes. Researchers at the University of Maryland are using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model system to unravel what genes and gene pathways are involved in the metabolic changes that lead to insulin resistance and full-blown diabetes in humans. (more…)
Film biography of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), the Moravian monk who became the father of modern genetics through his study of pea plants. One of a series of medical history films by J. Lee Sedwick, M.D., F.A.C.S., Clinical Professor of Surgery, East Carolina University, and Larry Gardner, President of Digifonics, Inc
