Cells, Not DNA, Are The Master Architects Of Life
        
            By Alfonso Martinez Arias, 
                Noema
             | 05. 30. 2023
        
                    
                                    
                    
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                            
                              
    
  
  
    
  
          
  
      
    
            Every animal and plant on Earth has an awesome beauty: the majesty of an oak, the delicate fabric of a butterfly, the grace of a gazelle, the imperious presence of a whale and, of course, us humans, with our mixture of wonders and fatal flaws. Where does it all come from? In Mayan tradition, the answer is corn; other cultures suggest various forms of egg as the source. In many stories, the origin is some clay-like material shaped by the might and imagination of a powerful entity that breathes life into it. From such starts, multiplication follows and the Earth is populated, though the details of how this happens are scant.
Over the past century, scientists have discovered a material explanation for the source of life, one that needs no divine intervention and provides a thread across eons of time for all beings that exist or have ever existed: deoxyribonucleic acid — DNA. While there is little doubt that genes have something to do with what we are and how we come to be, it is difficult to answer precisely...
 
       
 
  
 
    
    
  
   
                        
                                                                                
                 
                                                    
                            
                                  
    
  
  
      Related Articles
    
  
          
  
  
  
  
  
  
      
            
                  
  
      
    
    
    
    
            Paula Amato & Shoukhrat Mitalipov
[OHSU News/Christine Torres Hicks]
On September 30th, a team of 21 scientists from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) published a significant paper in Nature Communications, with a scientifically accurate but, to many, somewhat abstruse headline:
Induction of experimental cell division to generate cells with reduced chromosome ploidy
The lead authors were Shoukhrat Mitalipov, recently described here as “a push-the-envelope biologist,” and his long-term colleague Paula Amato. (Recall that in July the pair had co-published with...
 
       
 
 
  
      
    
    
                
                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                           By Pam Belluck,  The New York Times | 10.17.2025
                                                        
     
    
    
            Before dawn on a March morning, Doug Whitney walked into a medical center 2,000 miles from home, about to transform from a mild-mannered, bespectacled retiree into a superhuman research subject.
First, a doctor inserted a needle into his back to...
 
       
 
 
  
      
    
    
                
                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                           By Elizabeth Dwoskin and Zoeann Murphy,  The Washington Post | 10.01.2025
                                                        
     
    
    
            MEXICO CITY — When she walked into an IVF clinic in June, Alin Quintana knew it would be the last time she would try to conceive a child. She had prepared herself spiritually and mentally for the visit: She had traveled to a nearby...
 
       
 
 
  
      
    
    
                
                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                           By Rob Stein,  NPR | 09.30.2025
                                                        
     
    
    
            Scientists have created human eggs containing genes from adult skin cells, a step that someday could help women who are infertile or gay couples have babies with their own genes but would also raise difficult ethical, social and legal issues...