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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Nature vs. nurture: A philosophical accounting
Unfortunately, it is not easy--even in principle--to separate these issues neatly. For example, those who cling to genetic essentialism dismiss ...
Oxytocin may be secret hormone that fights aging
Oxytocin is best known for its role as a crucial human bonding hormone. A new study suggests it's also needed ...
New book examines the evolution of left-handedness
The question of why some humans are left-handed — including such notable specimens as Plato, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, Debbie ...
Writing by hand may open a conduit to human creativity. Have we evolved to write?
Studies show the cognitive and physiological uniqueness of handwriting. Did humans evolve to write? ...
Exercise is related to health microbiome, but may not cause it
Bernat Olle points to a "news" story in Medpage Today: Exercise Boosts Gut Microbiome Diversity by Kristina Fiore. Well, so ...
New York’s Cardinal Joseph O’Connor was born to Jewish mother, daughter of a rabbi
In his 16 years as the Catholic Church’s top official in New York, Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor was a staunch ...
Humans think of themselves as special but we’re just another animal
Even though you are reading this on a sophisticated electronic device, you are an animal. That's the most radical idea ...
Corals and humans evolved complex mechanisms for necessary cell death
For us to live, parts of us must die. Every day, billions of our cells shrink, break up into small ...
Does our anthropocentric view of genetics keep us from scientific discovery?
We often attribute disease causing agency to microbes. But any human heath effects they have were discovered haphazardly through evolution ...
Knowledge of evolution gains ground among public
Since Gallup started polling Americans about the origins of man in 1982, creationists have stayed pretty faithful to their views ...
Crowdsourcing genetic disease: The Resilience Project wants you!
The Resilience Project, both ambitious and world-spanning, wants to collect a million DNA samples for sequencing in order to find ...
Evolution made modern human females thinner than ancestors
Modern day women have slim hips and narrower waists thanks to evolution - not calorie couting. Scientists made the discovery ...
8,000 year old mitochondrial DNA provides insight about first human farmers
The mitochondrial DNA of the first Near Eastern farmers has been sequenced for the first time. In the research, published ...
‘Buttressed against punches’: Did human face evolve to protect against fights?
Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures. For many ...
Beyond BRCA1&2, more genes responsible for breast cancer risk
Four new genes have been added to the growing list of those known to cause increased breast cancer risk when ...
Microbial passengers of our gut and skin change as we grow
When we are born, our mothers seed us with our first bacteria. As we grow up, these microbes—the microbiota—behave like ...
Kidney disease one area where genetics underlies racial health differences
Talking about race is never just black and white, but when it comes to health, one thing is crystal clear: ...
Artist uses van Gogh’s relative’s genetic material to create replica of famous ear
A German museum has put on display a copy of Vincent van Gogh's ear that was grown using genetic material ...
Genetic search engine will streamline research by linking disease genes to evolutionary partners
Our bodies are as vast as oceans and space, composed of a dizzying number of different types of cells. Exploration ...
Putting the ‘sex’ in sex chromosomes overshadows their holisitic importance
Sarah Richardson is a historian and philosopher of science who focuses on the intersections between race and sex and the ...
Some worms’ genes shorten lifespans depending on diet
Evidence that diet can profoundly affect aging is beginning to emerge, sometimes through targeted studies and other times by accident ...
UK panel supports first genetically modified human embryos
A British expert scientific panel gave its backing on Tuesday to potential new 3-way fertility treatments that would for the ...
Have a taste for liver? Food preferences might be hard wired
Geneticists have found 17 new genes that help determine what foods people enjoy most. But these genes aren't related to ...
X-linked gene controls two common male reproductive birth defects
Baylor College of Medicine scientists defined a previously unrecognized genetic cause for two types of birth defects found in newborn ...
Blondness carried in a single allele that enhances known hair color genes
Some Europeans have enhancers that make them blond. In this case, the enhancer isn’t a hair dye, but a genetic ...
Breast cancer gene also raises risk of lung cancer in smokers
After comparing the DNA of 11,348 Europeans with lung cancer and 15,861 cancer-free patients, researchers found a particularly strong contention ...
Prickly challenges of breakthrough fetal brain research: Learning about human differences
The brain remains an inscrutable mystery. A new research project gives us a peek at brain gene activity during fetal ...
