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.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
DNA reveals history of European languages, farming, migration
Europe is famously tesselated, with different cultural and language groups clustering in different regions. But how did they all get ...
Mammoth DNA successfully resurrected, but cloning won’t happen anytime soon
A group of researchers are getting closer to bringing the extinct woolly mammoth back to life. Geneticist George Church’s lab ...
Angelina Jolie: ‘Why I’m getting my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed’
Two years ago I wrote about my choice to have a preventive double mastectomy. A simple blood test had revealed that I carried ...
Life on Mars? Will we find it? Will we colonize the Red Planet?
Discovery of Martian life could provide us unprecedented insight into life's origins, and maybe help us understand how we can ...
Doomed mammoth-cloning attempt foiled by cosmic rays
Hwang Woo-Suk is the bad boy of genetics. He’s most famous for falsely claiming to have cloned human stem cells ...
Great Britain’s gene pool reflects migrants, rather than tribes
Some years ago I went to see a medieval farmhouse in north Devon. The owner was a hostile character with ...
Scientist’s quest to prove genes ‘jump’ forever shook up genetics
For much of the 20th century, genes were considered to be stable entities arranged in an orderly linear pattern on ...
Autism: No, it’s not caused by glyphosate or circumcision, but is likely in our genes
Vaccines, glyphosate herbicide, chemtrails and even circumcision have been blamed for the increase in autism cases over the years. But ...
‘Great Indoors’: Your home is a jungle of tiny animal lodgers
When humans began building shelters about 20,000 years ago, we unrolled a welcome mat for other species. Over the past ...
Are human beings GMOs?
Opponents of genetically modified crops often complain that moving genes between species is unnatural. Leaving aside the fact that the ...
Why do we need sleep?
If you’re lucky, you’ll spend a third of your life asleep. “That’s pretty incredible if you think about it, because when we’re ...
Genghis Khan’s Legacy: Male Y chromosome tells tale of genetic and cultural evolution
I do like to suggest that the genetic and archaeological record support the conjecture of Conan the Barbarian in terms ...
Genetics of why listening to music feels so good
That song you can't get out of your head might be doing something more than prompting you to hum the ...
Vikings once ruled Britain, but Anglo-Saxons still reign over genome
They came, they saw, they conquered. But while the Romans, Vikings and Normans ruled Britain for many years, none left ...
‘The Dress’ debate rages on: 23andMe tackling genetics behind illusion
The Internet has finally recovered from the great dress debate of 2015, but genetic testing firm 23andMe is still focused ...
Microbes, like genes, pass from one generation to next
The mountains of genomic-sequencing data generated by the National Institutes of Health's Human Microbiome Project and recent studies provide strong ...
Ethical ‘decision day’: How should we regulate ‘gene editing’ of humans?
Should we tinker with the genes of our descendants? It's been a futuristic ethical debate for half a century. Now ...
Do we have bacteria DNA in our genomes?
Many animal genomes include bacterial and fungal genes acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) during evolution, according to a study ...
Anus is no laughing matter: How unlikely organ shaped animal evolution
The anus is one of the most important parts of many animals; an essential structure that changes how an organism’s ...
It’s 2015: Do you know where your genetic data are?
Are pharmaceutical or insurance companies looking at your DNA? Even when genomes do not identify individuals to which they belong, ...
How human are you? Research suggests we carry over 100 foreign genes
You’re not completely human, at least when it comes to the genetic material inside your cells. You—and everyone else—may harbor ...
How natural poison drove evolution of South American community
The Atacama Desert straddles the Andes Mountains, reaching into parts of Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Little rain falls on ...
Evolution is weird: Killer diseases save lives and make us smarter?
Inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, Tay-Sachs disease and certain breast cancers can kill you or make life very challenging. So why ...
Tooth DNA reveals unknown origins of buried African slaves
Researchers have analyzed the DNA of ancient teeth to identify the regional origin of three African slaves buried more than ...
Is dancing success ‘in your genes’?
Dance may have evolved for a variety of reasons. To what degree are athletes hardwired? Can your moves on the ...
Who’s your daddy? You may be descended from Genghis Khan
Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that millions of modern Asian men are descended from 11 powerful dynastic ...
Will gene therapy make humans masters of own evolution?
Human genetic engineering is not new; it has been going on for a long, long time — naturally. Ancient viruses ...
