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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Reconstructing ancestors’ genomes using DNA data from descendants
David Speegle was a preacher in Alabama in the 1800s. Apparently he was very serious about the Bible's charge to ...
Searching for messages from ET in life’s Genetic Code
Did human life begin on Planet Earth or was life seeded by another civilization in a distant galaxy? As proposterous ...
Can your dog really understand what you’re saying?
Sometimes it may seem like your dog doesn’t want to listen. But in our study, however, we’ve found that he ...
How did humans learn to speak? Ask the birds
Songbirds stutter, babble when young, become mute if parts of their brains are damaged, learn how to sing from their ...
Environmentalists fumble concerns over ‘racial mixing’ and biodiversity
One of the often overlooked historical oddities in the development of the environmental movement in the United States was its ...
Why don’t indigenous Americans look like their pioneer ancestors?
The first face of the first Americans belongs to an unlucky teenage girl who fell to her death in a ...
DNA is tough enough to survive space travel
Could the blueprint for life have come from space? Yes, according to an experiment carried out by molecular biologist Cora ...
Alcohol in moderation good for you? Accepted wisdom may not be wise and other myth-busting alcohol truisms
A few simple mutations seem to protect some people against alcohol abuse. But mostly the relationship between genes and alcohol's ...
Are more men idiots? ‘Darwin Awards’ study examines gender differences in idiocy
Sex differences in mortality and admissions to hospital emergency departments have been well documented, and hypotheses put forward to account for ...
Human evolution isn’t all competition: it’s cooperation, too
People often have a grim view of what it means to be human. There’s this conception that inside each of ...
In India, a form of eugenics that people might embrace
The term “eugenics” has very negative connotations today. Nevertheless, in some ways society is moving in a direction which results ...
Immune system hoards iron supply to fight microbes
Disease is an act of piracy. When microbes infect us, they steal our resources so they can thrive at our ...
Did the Khoisans’ ancestors once rule the earth?
It is common for strong results from population genetics to be confused when it is translated for public consumption. The ...
How culture shaped human evolution
Culture is not a luxury; it is life or death. Culture has likely been the most important part of the ...
Proving Native American ancestry is more complicated than a DNA test
Many people have family lore that suggests they have Native American ancestry. The first step to confirming or denying these ...
Forced sterilization in Peru: Did modern eugenic practices slow population growth?
The Peruvian government is alleged to have used coercive methods to sterilize thousands of indigenous women and men to control ...
Robot working hard to recreate origin of life
A cheap 3D-printed robot and a PlayStation camera are hard at work trying to find the origins of life. But ...
Viking men didn’t travel alone: Norsewomen helped colonize new lands, too
Vikings may have been family men who traveled with their wives to new lands, according to a new study of ...
Personal genomics and gene editing revolutions beg for global regulatory rethink
The scientific impact of personalized genome editing is easy to imagine: Designer babies, lab grown meat and the end of ...
Early theories on evolution weren’t all spot-on
Darwin's era was not the first time that people began wondering where humans come from. Throughout history the debate is ...
Receiving a genome screening for cancer risk as an Ashkenazi Jew
Rarely could I be described in a headline in The New York Times, which explains why I lingered over one ...
Bill Nye on why evolution denialism persists
More than two in five Americans believe that God created human beings in essentially their current form within the last ...
Couples can protect children from devastating mutations with new IVF methods
IVF clinics are moving beyond chromosome counting to offer families a more in-depth genetic analysis of embryos before implantation. This ...
How important is height in attracting a potential partner?
Before I started researching height differences in heterosexual couples, I held two assumptions that you might share: Men tend to ...
Climate change, tourism threaten species conservation in Galápagos Islands
Unesco calls the Galápagos Islands a “living museum and showcase of evolution,” but they are much more than that. The ...
Anti-GMO Activism and Its Impact on Food Security
Activists have dismissed the opinions of the world’s leading scientists to undermine public trust in the benefits of GM crops ...
