May 09, 2016 at 12:36AM

Today I Learned: 1) Cas9 binds really, really tightly. So tightly, in fact, that it apparently doesn't let go even after it's cut its target! 2) While I'm on the topic of Cas9, Cas9 can also cut RNA... but it can't recognize PAMs made out of RNA, so you have to supply a little DNA oligo to anneal to the RNA's PAM, which Cas9 can hook to to start the binding process. Today I learned that this strategy works in vivo as well as in vitro. 3) Speaking of science things, did you know that canadian scientists have been censored on a number of environmental topics for nine years now? I certainly didn't. Apparently Canada's government had, up until very recently, required Canadian scientists to request approval any time they wanted to talk to the media about a number of topics. The rules for acceptable material to discuss were never made explicit, requests for approval took a long time, and scientists were very often effectively embargoed from communicating with the public. You know, I respected the Canadian government, overall, but this little piece of information just made them lose all credibility in my mind. Some details here: http://ift.tt/21MPGdl