Nature, in what was almost certainly not an April Fools’ gag, reports that there’s genetic evidence, now, that Polynesians traveled to the Amazon in days gone by – because old Brazilians share DNA with South Pacific islanders:

Indigenous people that lived in southeastern Brazil in the late 1800s shared some genetic sequences with Polynesians, an analysis of their remains [...]

BBC reveals that giant squid, no matter where they’re found or how different from each other they look, are all genetically really close to one another:

An international team of researchers investigated rare samples of the elusive animals’ DNA to reveal their family secrets.

They discovered that there is just a single species of squid with no population structure.

The findings [...]

SONG: “Starts Beating” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “Scientists build a biological pacemaker by injecting a modified virus into the heart”, io9.com, 17 December 2012, as used in the post “Virus rebuilds unhealthy hearts.”

ABSTRACT: I like thinking about the metaphor of hearts being broken, because what everyone thinks of [...]

New Scientist may have uncovered the bones of Richard III, the king either most villainous or most misunderstood of Plantangenet:

What exactly has been found?
The body of an adult male has been excavated from what is believed to be ruins of the choir area of the Grey Friars church in Leicester. It’s now a car park in the city [...]

Tecca reports on the 50 percent mutation rate in insects near the nuclear site:

Tens of thousands of residents were displaced and officials assured the world that the release of harmful radiation posed little threat. Now a new paper published in Scientific Reports has found that this is likely far from the truth, as at least one species of butterfly [...]

Nature has an item for the Eye-Rolling Desk at the Bureau of Bad Science. Hungarian officials are taking a hard look at a genetic analysis firm apparently specializing in “racial purity” reports:

Hungary’s Medical Research Council (ETT), which advises the government on health policy, has asked public prosecutors to investigate a genetic-diagnostic company that certified that a member of parliament [...]

…of killing endangered animals. Or at least Nature hypes up enough evidence to put Chinese medicine on trial:

“There’s absolutely no honesty in the labelling of these products. What they declare is completely at odds with what’s in there,” says Mike Bunce, a geneticist at Murdoch University near Perth, Australia, who led the study. The results are published today [...]

BBC reports on neurologists who’ve managed to not only create brain cells in the lab – but to make Parkinson’s-diseased cells from scratch:

The breakthrough means they can now see exactly how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease in an estimated one in 10 patients with Parkinson’s.

…

“This is the first time that human dopamine neurons have ever [...]

Not rice the cost of which is blood (I mean, not as in “blood diamonds”) but rice that PopSci says actually grows human blood:

HSA is important for treatment of a wide array of maladies, including severe burns, liver cirrhosis and hemorrhagic shock, and it’s a key ingredient in drug and vaccine tests. But its primary source is donated human [...]