Ancestry & Evolution
The desire to understand our origins is primal. By examining our DNA over successive generations through the evolutionary process of inherited characteristics of human and animal populations–as well as from those species from which humans share a common ancestry–we can decipher our individual and collective past and develop medical innovations for the future.
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Fact-checking pro-organic lobby group GMO ‘facts’, attacks on conventional agriculture
Fact-checking pro-organic lobby group Cornucopia.org's 'facts' yield surprising results ...
Mysteries of cat, human health revealed through microbiome
Studying the bacteria that live in an on our feline friends maybe a good proxy for humans. They live in ...
Are genetic ancestry companies taking you for a ride?
I can reveal that I am a direct descendent of someone of similar greatness: Charlemagne, Carolingian King of the Franks, ...
Forensic analysis reveals hominid who lived 430,000 years ago was murdered
It's the coldest of cold cases: a forensic analysis suggests that an ancient human who lived 430,000 years ago died ...
New fossil evidence reignites debate on pace of human evolution
For scientists who study human evolution, the last few months have been a whirlwind. Every couple of weeks, it seems, ...
Arm chair geneticists looking for enlightenment could provide useful data
People who sequence their genomes don’t hinder public health; they offer an opportunity for free data. We should capitalize on ...
Is there a genetic basis for being unfaithful?
When I was trained as a psychiatrist we were told to look for various emotional and developmental factors to explain ...
John Nash, inspiration for ‘A Beautiful Mind,’ dies in car accident
John F. Nash Jr., a mathematician who shared a Nobel Prize in 1994 for work that greatly extended the reach ...
Tampering with nature is how humans can avoid extinction
Technology causes problems and yes we've been irresponsible to the very environment that keeps us alive. But it can also ...
Nature vs nuture debate put to rest: Both equally important in determining traits
It has long been a subject of debate: are human traits determined by nurture or nature? Now, a team of ...
Are men really necessary to evolution of a species?
Sex is a messy, inefficient method of reproducing, but most multicellular organisms have evolved to rely on a partner regardless ...
700,000-year-old tool discovery raises question of evolution of human intelligence
Was there someone before human existence who had the same or may be higher intelligence level? A research conducted by ...
Even after death, the body is teeming with life
Far from being ‘dead’, a rotting corpse is teeming with life. A growing number of scientists view a rotting corpse ...
Brain has special process for distinguishing human speech from other noises
Researchers from Duke University and MIT discovered that part of our brains that is responsible for human speech recognition. Until recently, ...
If we encountered extraterrestrial aliens, what would they look like?
With thousands of planets outside Earth's solar system, there's a pretty good chance that some of them have the conditions ...
Should there be tighter regulations on gene editing in wildlife?
The ethical issues raised by human germline engineering are not new. They deserve consideration, but outcry over designer babies and ...
What are the odds? Family celebrates birth of 13th consecutive son
Beyond X and Y chromosomes, scientists postulate genes and environmental exposures play a roll in making sons or daughters more ...
Human origins debate: Did diversity evolve exclusively in Africa?
Analyses of the genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-day humans, suggest that our ancestors were ...
Genetics of depression: Could a test have prevented the Germanwings catastrophe?
Major depression affects an estimated 10 percent of the population and often runs in families. Could a genetic test could ...
Individuality might be a measureable genetic trait
Benjamin de Bivort's lab at Harvard University is Groundhog Day for fruit flies. In de Bivort’s version, a fly must choose to ...
Do flies feel fear like humans do?
When a fly escapes being swatted, what is going on in its head? Is it as terrified as we would be after ...
Early Europeans closer to Neanderthals than expected
One of Europe’s earliest known humans had a close Neanderthal ancestor: perhaps as close as a great-great-grandparent. The finding, announced ...
Archaeologists reveal native Alaskans’ roots
As humans spread out of Africa and settled the rest of the world tens of thousands of years ago, one ...
More mystery about Neanderthal and modern humans: How reliable is ancient DNA analysis?
Modern humans share swaths of DNA with long-extinct Neanderthals. But what does this mean? New and complicated dating techniques and ...
Scientists reverse evolution in birds to make them more like dinosaurs
The past hundred million years or so have not been kind to the dinosaurs. Once formidable “terrible lizards,” their closest modern descendant is the distinctly unimpressive chicken. Now ...
Scientist who discovered CRISPR/Cas9 weighs future of new technology
Three years ago, Jennifer A. Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, helped make one of the most monumental ...
