The pounding on my door jolts me awake. “Get up!” a voice booms. “They caught a jaguar!”

It’s 2 a.m. I stumble into my clothes, grab my gear and slip into the full-moon-lit night. Within minutes, I’m in a boat with three biologists blasting up the wide Cuiabá River in southwestern Brazil’s vast Pantanal wetlands, the boatman pushing the 115-horsepower engine full throttle. We disembark, climb into a pickup truck and bump through scrubby pastureland.

Cancer research no longer follows a one-size-fits-all approach. It's become much more personalized, with research on genes driving the trend. Doctors now know that one cancer -- like breast or lung cancer -- can come in many different genetic types. Genomics, the study of changes to genes in your DNA, is giving doctors important clues about how your cancer will act and how to best treat it. Doctors look for changes called mutations in certain cancer genes.

GENE THERAPY - The article offers information on the advantages of gene therapy for various genetic illness. Topics discussed include use of gene therapy for treating child with severe combined immunodeficiency; approval of first gene therapy for a leukaemia treatment; and use of adeno-associated virus by the gene therapists for gene therapy. It also mention about use of genetic engineering to introduce the gene of interest during gene therapy.

GENETIC MODIFICATION - The article presents an overview of how the crops are genetically modified (GM), the potential benefits and risks of these crops, the considerations for assessing food safety and how the GM foods are currently regulated and labelled. Topics include the genes and the technology of genetic engineering, concerns over the potential production of new toxic proteins in GM plants and the gold standard for testing substance for toxicology through thorough animal testing.

INVASIVE SPECIES - An invasive Australian tree is now posing a serious threat to a global diversity 'hotspot' in the natural forests of Jamaica's Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park. The tree species, Pittosporum undulatum, known locally as 'mock orange', is threatening many rare and endangered species, some of which are found nowhere else in the world. Scientists are urging the relevant institutions to prioritise a program of control of this species.

GENETIC ENGINEERING - The article argues the need to develop processes for examining new technologies while they are still being developed and that precaution should precede the technology development. Topics covered include two regulatory responses to the emerging understanding of the potential negative impacts of genetic engineering on human or animal health and the environment, the uses of genome editing tools and the objective of gene drives, which is considered the newest technical development.

After almost 15 years of work and $40 million, a team of scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute says they have succeeded in creating the first living organism with a completely synthetic genome. This advance could be proof that genomes designed in a computer and assembled in a lab can function in a donor cell, eventually reproducing fully functional living creatures, that is, artificial life.

The world is one step closer to a new synthetic organism.
Scientists have created five synthetic yeast chromosomes and placed them inside yeast cells. The chromosomes are composed of the normal letters, or base pairs, that make up DNA, but the sequence is slightly different from those found naturally in yeast.

Chinese scientists have edited the genomes of human embryos for the first time, confirming a storm of rumors and igniting an ethical debate.

Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, used an experimental gene-editing technique to modify a gene in human embryos that causes a fatal blood disorder. The procedure, which was done in nonviable embryos, was only partially successful, Nature News reported.

A mouse plague in New South Wales, Australia, has forced a jail to relocate thousands of inmates while it carries out cleaning and renovations.
More than 400 prisoners and 200 staff at the Wellington Correctional Centre will be moved to other facilities over the next two weeks.

Evolution, theory in biology postulating that the various types of plants, animals, and other living things on Earth have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations. The theory of evolution is one of the fundamental keystones of modern biological theory.

There are now numerous established pieces of evidence which support the theory of evolution by natural selection. Something provides evidence for evolution when it demonstrates a change in characteristics from an ancestral form

The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring.

Traditional evolutionary biology began in the 1930s with the “modern synthesis,” which fused Darwin's theses on phenotypic variation and selection with Mendel's concepts of genetic inheritance to explain the source of biological diversity. This synthesis predated knowledge that genes were made of DNA and of the structure of DNA and how it replicates.

DNA, abbreviation of deoxyribonucleic acid, organic chemical of complex molecular structure that is found in all prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and in many viruses. DNA codes genetic information for the transmission of inherited traits.

Genetics, study of heredity in general and of genes in particular. Genetics forms one of the central pillars of biology and overlaps with many other areas, such as agriculture, medicine, and biotechnology.

Heredity, the sum of all biological processes by which particular characteristics are transmitted from parents to their offspring. The concept of heredity encompasses two seemingly paradoxical observations about organisms: the constancy of a species from generation to generation and the variation among individuals within a species.