News tagged with bioscience
Yellow-cedar are dying in Alaska: Scientists now know why
Yellow-cedar, a culturally and economically valuable tree in southeastern Alaska and adjacent parts of British Columbia, has been dying off across large expanses of these areas for the past 100 years. But ...
Feb 01, 2012 |
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Conserving biodiversity could benefit the world's poor
Land areas that are a priority for wildlife conservation provide relatively high levels of ecosystem services such as pollination, water purification, food production, and climate regulation, so safeguarding them is expected ...
Jan 12, 2012 |
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New method for studying gene activity developed
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), Harvard University and RocheNimblegen Inc. have developed a new method for examining genetic information that reveals clues to understanding ...
Nov 14, 2011 |
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New top-down strategy of identifying proteins could lead to early detection of disease
The human genome has been mapped. Now, it's on to proteins, a much more daunting task. There are 20,300 genes, but there are millions of distinct protein molecules in our bodies. Many of these hold keys to understanding disease ...
Oct 30, 2011 |
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Can indigenous peoples be relied on to gather reliable environmental data?
No one is in a better position to monitor environmental conditions in remote areas of the natural world than the people living there. But many scientists believe the cultural and educational gulf between trained scientists ...
Oct 13, 2011 |
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'Non-invasive' cultivar? Buyer beware
Cultivars of popular ornamental woody plants that are being sold in the United States as non-invasive are probably anything but, according to an analysis by botanical researchers published in the October issue of BioScience. Tiffan ...
Oct 07, 2011 |
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Organic carbon suggests Swedish lakes were less acidified
During the 1970s and 1980s, researchers and policymakers became increasingly worried about multiple consequences of acidic emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from the stacks of power stations, and eventually ...
Aug 01, 2011 |
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Teaching workshops fail to spur learner-centered teaching
Professional development workshops for college teachers, designed to encourage the use of active, "learner-centered" teaching methods, may be less effective than the participants believe, according to research reported in ...
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Jul 06, 2011 |
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Stopping malignancy in its tracks
An unusual chemical compound isolated from a mud-dwelling fungus found in a soil sample collected in Daejeon, South Korea, could lead to a new family of antitumor drugs. Discovered by teams led by Jong Seog ...
Jul 01, 2011 |
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Environment for stem cell development engineered to control differentiation
Stem cell technologies have been proposed for cell-based diagnostics and regenerative medicine therapies. However, being able to make stem cells efficiently develop into a desired cell type -- such as muscle, ...
Jun 16, 2011 |
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Deepwater Horizon spill threatens more species than legally protected
Marine species facing threats from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico far exceed those under legal protection in the United States, a new paper in the journal BioScience finds. Univer ...
May 11, 2011 |
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3D proteins -- Getting the big picture
How do you get to know a protein? How about from the inside out? If you ask chemistry professor James Hinton, "It's really important that students be able to touch, feel, see ... embrace--if you like, these ...
May 10, 2011 |
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Undergraduate institutions should play larger research role
A group of 12 biology educators at US colleges and universities that teach mostly undergraduates argues in the May issue of BioScience for coordinating networks to expand the study and teaching of ecology conducted at the ...
May 04, 2011 |
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Top 40 science questions from US conservation policy makers
A wide-ranging group of experts has published a set of 40 key environmental questions to help align scientific research agendas with the needs of natural resource decision makers.
Apr 06, 2011 |
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Cancer drug found hiding in sunflower seed protein
University of Queensland scientists have found sunflower proteins and their processing machinery are hijacked to make rogue protein rings in a discovery that could open the door to cheaper, plant-based drug manufacturing.
Mar 21, 2011 |
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Biotechnology
Biotechnology (sometimes shortened to "biotech") is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose. Modern use of similar terms includes genetic engineering as well as cell- and tissue culture technologies. The concept encompasses a wide range of procedures (and history) for modifying living organisms according to human purposes — going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of plants, and "improvements" to these through breeding programs that employ artificial selection and hybridization. By comparison to biotechnology, bioengineering is generally thought of as a related field with its emphasis more on higher systems approaches (not necessarily altering or using biological materials directly) for interfacing with and utilizing living things. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity defines biotechnology as:
In other terms: "Application of scientific and technical advances in life science to develop commercial products" is biotechnology.
Biotechnology draws on the pure biological sciences (genetics, microbiology, animal cell culture, molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology, cell biology) and in many instances is also dependent on knowledge and methods from outside the sphere of biology (chemical engineering, bioprocess engineering, information technology, biorobotics). Conversely, modern biological sciences (including even concepts such as molecular ecology) are intimately entwined and dependent on the methods developed through biotechnology and what is commonly thought of as the life sciences industry.
For more information about Biotechnology, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
