The word 'chromosomes' is correct and commonly used in written English.
It can be used in various contexts, but it is most commonly used in biology and genetics to refer to the thread-like structures found in the nucleus of cells that carry genetic information. Example: "The human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, each carrying unique genetic information that determines our physical traits and characteristics."
The vast majority of the world's animals, including humans, have two sets of chromosomes.
Scientists think the frog attained so many chromosomes through hybridising with similar species over millions of years.
It has big webbed feet, no tongue at all, and (here's where we leave typical children's book territory) a whole bunch of chromosomes.
But, hopefully, the insurance population will never have to be used, hopefully these bizarre beings will continue swimming in their little mountaintop lake for eons to come, gobbling up whatever gets too close and beguiling us with their many chromosomes.
Add extra copies of them to these organisms' chromosomes, or force the existing copies to produce more protein than normal, and life is prolonged.
And the physiology prize went to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for their work on telomeres, the DNA caps that stop the ends of chromosomes either unravelling or sticking to one another.Dr Kao was working for the Standard Telecommunications Laboratories, an American-owned facility in Britain, at the time of his breakthrough.
This happens during the production of sex cells, and its effect is to halve the number of chromosomes in a cell (the number returns to normal when two sex cells combine during fertilisation).
He and his colleagues reckon they can both estimate the rate of evolution and identify many of the evolving genes, by using a trick with the clumsy name of linkage disequilibrium.Genes are linked together in cell nuclei on structures called chromosomes.
In particular, the embryonic cells they studied gained extra bits of chromosomes 12 or 17, which the group speculates may help these cells retain their ability to renew themselves.
By transplanting the endonuclease gene into the genomes of male mosquitoes, and arranging for it to be active only during the process of spermatogenesis (so that other bodily functions are unaffected), the researchers create males which produce predominantly "male" sperm cells about 95% of them carry Y chromosomes.
When these chromosomes break, and their parts then join to form a 9-22 hybrid chromosome, they bring together two genes, called BCR and ABL.
