On June 3, 1970 the American biologist Har Gobind Khorana announced the total synthesis of the first fully artificial gene in a living cell.
In subsequent years the scientist continued to experiment and nine years later showed how artificial genes function in bacteria.
This work was a turning point in genetics and is a basis for methods of assembly of whole genomes from short-stranded DNA. The invention was brought into production, and now many companies provide opportunity to order any synthetic gene.
Also for his life Khorana proved that the biological language common to all living creatures consists of a set of three-letter words: each set of three nucleotides encodes a specific amino acid.
For this discovery Khorana was awarded with the Nobel Prize. Interestingly, the scientist was the last to know that he was honoured with the highest scientific recognition. On the day of the winners announcement Khorana went to the cottage near the lake without a telephone or radio to write articles, and learned about the award only from his wife.
Flying to Mars and back a person will get approximately 60 percent of the radiation doze that is considered acceptable for the astronaut in his entire career. Russian and Bulgarian scientists came to such a conclusion on the basis of the data received from the machine Trace Gas Orbiter of mission ‘Eksomars’.
Russian scientists found out the well-kept skull of Siberian unicorn, an extinct woolly mammal Elasmotherium sibiricum from the family of rhinoceros. The age of remains is 29 thousand years. The edition Science alert writes about that.
In the piece of amber at the market in Myanmar a fragment of feathery tail of the tiny dinosaur has been found. As the scientists told, this discovery is originated from the epoch not less than ninety-nine million years ago.
The district court of Amsterdam ordered to return to Ukraine 500 showpieces from four museums of the Crimea famous as ‘Scythian gold’, as Reuters reported on Wednesday, on the 12-th of December.
As it is reported by the edition France24, at the auction in Paris the most famous gun in the story of French literature has been sold. The poet Paul Verlain tried to shot his love partner using the stated weapon directing to bullet to another famous literature activist Arthur Rimbaud.
UNESCO has recognized as the heritage the songs performed by Cossacks within the territory where Dnepropetrovsk region is situated now. It is reported at the web-site of the international organization.
The Patriarch of Rome arranged a meeting with the scientist Stephen Hawking in Papal Academy of science located in Vatican. It is reported by Radio Vaticana.
In Britain on Tuesday it was an auction where for the first time for almost a century the skeleton of an extinct bird dodo was sold. The organizers of the action count that the skeleton will charge an amount from 300 to 500 thousand pounds (370-620 thousand dollars).
Astrophysics from Institute of fundamental investigations Tata found out scratch in the earth’s magnetosphere maintaining the protection of the planet from the cosmic rays and solar irradiation.
Brown stone having been found out at the South of England more than ten years ago became the first in the history of science sample of petrified celebrum of dinosaur, as the researchers confirmed.
American meteorologists gave a possible explanation to the existence of the abnormal region at the south from Miami famous as the Bermuda triangle. The appropriate video is accessible at the web-site The Independent.
Finnish researchers who concentrated on the investigation of the north light defined that it is accompanied not only with the great light show but also with specific acoustic fluctuations that can be registered with the help of the specialized equipment.
The company of Elon Mask Space X represented program on colonization of Mars. Mask is planning to build a space ship able to have reached the Red planet for three months and take enough material for the construction of the base.
