Mendel's Garden #25

After a few months off, here's the return of Mendel's Garden.

• Blast from the past: rENNISance woman gives us a post on viral genetics.

• Figuring out DNA looping with unbelievably advanced technology: Greg Laden reviews a paper on the structure of nucleic acids.

• In the fly, delayed reproduction also delays aging: Ouroboros describes research on senescence in Drosophila.

• Balancer Chromosomes: Larry Moran describes this marked chromosomal inversions (see also Hermann Muller Invented the Balancer Chromosome).

• The Genetics of Voting: From Bayblab, a post on the heritability of filling the ballot box.

• Science Tuesday: Back into the hornets' nest: A free man tries to understand the causes of autism.

• Freedom of the Genetic Press? Can newly created letters of life's alphabet be patented?: Tom Payne's Ghost considers the patenting of novel amino-acids.

• Slightly Deleterious in Trans: I wrote about a new chapter in the cis vs. trans debate.

That's it for this month's edition of Mendel's Garden. If you'd like to host in December, or a subsequent month, shoot me an email (evolgen-at-yahoo-dot-com).