Molecular Biology but spooky

The color blue is familiar to most people and is, in fact, most peoples favorite color (2). But it may be surprising to some that blue is actually almost never found organically in nature.  The blue found in animals is mostly caused by reflection of blue light by tiny structures called schemochromes, which are structural differences that cause light to interact with the structures in a certain way, causing them to appear a certain color (3).  This is most apparent with blue birds such as blue jays or hyacinthine macaws.  These feathers of these birds have air pockets within the bard that act as tiny particles which scatter light refracted by the oxygen in the air (3). Some plants can produce a blue pigment in this way as well but most of the blue found in plants is due to a class of chemical compounds called anthocyanins.  These compounds are responsible for many pigments in nature including reds and purples, the anthocya...

Cryogenic freezing is a concept some of us may be familiar with mostly thanks to the infamous tale of Walt Disney freezing his head.  While his case is not necessarily true, many people after him have decided this is what they wish to do with their bodies after death, in the hopes to be revived and cured of illness in the future.  Cryogenic freezing or cryopreservation is defined as "a process that preserves organelles, cells, tissues, or any other biological constructs by cooling the samples to very low temperatures" (3).  The first person to do this was Dr. James Bedford in January 1967 (5), and as of 2013, 269 people have been cryogenically frozen worldwide (8) although the numbers on this are hard to determine.    The process of cryogenic freezing sounds like something out of a sci fi novel.  The process is actually rather intuitive.  The patient must first be legally dead, once proclaimed dead the patient is placed in an ice bath while blood cir...

Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with film or book "Jurassic Park", the story deals with ideas of resurrecting dinosaurs and the moral delimas that come with it.  While this seemed like fantasy in the 90's when the book and movie were released we are coming closer to a point this may be a reality.  With the advent of new and advanced techniques in molecular biology there are a few pathways that de-extinction is actually taking place. There are three main paths of de-extinction currently; Back breeding, Cloning and Genetic engineering.  Back breeding and is actually quite simple in practice, basically two species that are thought to be related to the extinct species are bred together to try to "resurrect resurrect traits that have been lost or diluted over evolutionary time" (Shapiro).  The hard part is determining which species may be genetically linked and what genes have been dispersed where in modern cattle. However, even this has become easier wit...