Mutant butterflies of Fukushima.
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 […]
genetics
Bad science comes back: Eugenics pops up in Eastern Europe.
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 […]
DNA evidence finds Chinese medicine guilty…
…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 […]
Home-cooked Parkinson’s.
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 […]
Blood rice.
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 […]
Closer to a cloned mammoth.
Physorg hearkens to the growing thunder of massive, woolly feet as Japanese and Russian researchers declare they’re one step closer to bringing mammoths back: Teams […]
Garage biology. (Like garage rock.)
The Daily is reporting on a revolution. DIY researchers are leaving the academy to take a punk rock approach to science: Three years ago, [Mackensie] […]
Herring AND good genes can keep you young.
So reports LiveScience’s “Bad Medicine” columnist Christopher Wanjek, writing about the woman who was the world’s oldest: The 115-year-old Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, who held the […]
Long-distance loves have tall kids.
Live Science discusses a strange bit of statistics – showing that the farther apart you and your mate are from, the taller your offspring will […]
Oupa Neanderthal
University of Montreal researchers have determined that if you’ve got European ancestors, congratulations – you’re part Neanderthal: Neanderthals, whose ancestors left Africa about 400,000 to […]
Evolution machine
Genetic engineers have, in the latest New Scientist, devised a device that (deviously) speeds up the process of evolution: For instance, a yeast engineered to […]
Mother cow.
It must be strange to work in a facility like the ones Sky News just reported on – the places where genetically modified cows produce […]
“Werewolf family” gene discovered.
Scientists studying Mexico’s family of sideshow entertainers – all of whom are covered head-to-foot in hair – and similar family in China have made a […]
Mutant mosquitoes fight “breakbone fever.”
The Miami Herald reports on a new front line in a genetic war against insect-borne disease: Researchers at Oxitec Limited, an Oxford-based company, created sterile […]
Do not fear the super-spud.
New Scientist is considerably cheerier about another transgenic thing coming out of the sub-continent – a new generation of high-protein potatoes: Subra Chakraborty and colleagues […]