The sleepless gene.
Science World Report takes a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed look at the mutation that makes some people chipper, functional early risers: The researchers turned to 100 pairs […]
genetics
A beer family tree.
New York Times explores the mapping of a new genome, as researchers chart a family tree of craft beer: After thousands of years of unwitting […]
We can get embryonic stem cells… by cloning adults.
Nature introduces yet another ethical wrinkle into the production of stem cells, with new techniques to create cell-generating embryos from adult cells: On 17 April, […]
Children can inherit their parents’ trauma… through Dad’s sperm.
Nature reveals how parents who live through something horrible can have children who inherit depression and anxiety – biologically, through their RNA – from traumas […]
Procrastination and impulsivity are linked… in your genes.
Science Daily tries to find the evolutionary roots of …oooh, shiny! I’ll finish this tomorrow: From an evolutionary standpoint, impulsivity makes sense: Our ancestors should […]
Out of the Cattle Crescent.
Science Daily twists the archaeological order of things around a little. Humans came out of Africa, humans in Africa have domesticated cattle for thousands of […]
Native Americans go back longer than we thought.
Nature examines a DNA test on a “Clovis boy,” whose DNA proves that 12,000 years ago, the ancestors of today’s Native Americans were already here: […]
Trauma can be inherited.
Shades of Philip Larkin…. Washington Post has more on how mice, at least, pass fear down with their DNA: In the experiment, researchers taught male […]
Cavemen & modern humans… they got it on.
DNA analysis presented at the Royal Society in London shows, Nature says in the most delicate way possible, that ancient humans were getting it on […]
A blood test for Alzheimer’s disease – almost here.
BBC reports on the struggle to develop an early blood test for Alzheimer’s: A technique published in the journal Genome Biology showed differences in the […]
Frederick Kaufman wants to open-source genetically modified crops. And maybe save the planet.
Slate has printed his controversial plan to live up to the promise of gene science without the industrial agriculture downside: The GMO story has become […]
Tiki Brazil (Thor Heyerdahl was right! Maybe.)
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 […]
Giant squid CLONE ARMY. Or, well, at least a tight family.
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 […]
SONG: “Starts Beating”
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 […]
Richard loves Richard, that is, I and I….
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? […]