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LEFT: AUGUSTO ZAMBONATO. RIGHT: PERLEY, ET AL., NRAO/AUI/NSF, NASACellular Atlas Paves Way
for Precision Medicine
❯
THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT, the audacious map of
our genetic code that was completed 15 years ago, was
inspired by another genetic map — that of a tiny worm.
Scientists are hoping a new catalog of gene expression in each
cell of the same worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, will herald the
same kind of cellular atlas for humans.
To create the catalog, scientists extracted cells from thousands
of C. elegans larvae and chemically processed them in a way
that assigned a unique “barcode” to each cell. The method
revealed which genes were turned on or off. When the scientists
categorized the cells by this so-called gene expression, they
spotted 27 different types, including muscle, skin and intestine
cells, the team reported in Science in August.
This cellular atlas allows researchers to look for patterns.
A similar human atlas, already in progress, could spot signatures
linked to disease, enabling medical treatments tailored to
individual patients. — KATHERINE KORNEI❯
CYGNUS A IS A GALAXY
FAMOUS FOR harboring in
its center one of the most
active black holes we know of.
Astronomers have watched that
galaxy for decades, so imagine their
surprise when an observatory —
New Mexico’s Very Large Array —
spotted a new source of radio waves,
reported in June in The Astrophysical
Journal. The most likely explanation?
A second, dormant black hole had
awoken, flaming suddenly into view.
The two black holes are just
1,500 light-years apart, one of the
closest known pairs of supermassive
black holes. They are also likely
approaching each other and will
eventually merge into a single entity.
“If our conclusion is correct, this
offers a new pathway to understand
the process by which large black
holes coalesce in galaxy centers,”
says lead author Daniel Perley of
Liverpool John Moores University in
the U.K. — YVETTE CENDESFamous Galaxy
Hosts Bonus
Black Hole
Something has changed in the central
region of galaxy Cygnus A. The new area
emitting radio waves is likely a dormant
black hole waking up.19892015