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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Why Neanderthals did not survive side-by-side with humans
The Neanderthals, who once colonized Europe and Asia, became extinct about 30,000 years ago – but not before interbreeding with ...
How gene drives work to permanently establish inheritable traits
In recent history, techniques such as PCR, large scale DNA sequencing and CRISPR-Cas9 fall into this category. More commonly than designing techniques from ...
Are flu shots effective? Your genetics determine how the immune system responds
Not all people are the same in terms of how well a vaccine works. The research also suggests a tactic ...
Using genetics to establish ethnicity often ignores social context
Researchers often seek to gather empirical data to make objective conclusions about their research. But pure scientific objectivity may actually ...
Ebola evolved during latest outbreak to become deadlier to humans
What made the recent Ebola outbreak in west Africa so virulent? The virus that seeped across borders and killed more ...
Humans would not exist if viruses hadn’t intervened in our evolution
Viruses are parasites that cause a number of devastating diseases: AIDS, cervical cancer, the flu. They have led to a ...
Human hibernation: How it can change the world of medicine
Many films and shows feature human hibernation as a means to help astronauts travel deep into space. While this could ...
DNA of unknown extinct human ancestor species found
Traces of long-lost human cousins may be hiding in modern people’s DNA, a new computer analysis suggests. People from Melanesia, ...
Inuit newborns at serious risk during fasting due to “Arctic gene”
Thousands of years of a diet with lots of animal fats and sparse carbohydrates left a mark on the DNA ...
Genetics of modern Danish reveal surprising homogeneity
People from Denmark are genetically similar to each other no matter which part of the country they come from, report ...
What humans share with viruses: Both need as few as 3,000 genes to function healthily
About a half-century ago the estimated number of human genes was in the millions. Today we’re down to about 20,000 ...
Should we include robotic limbs and A.I. when talking about evolution?
Scientists have a hard time deciding what Homo Futurus might look like. Will our evolutionary descendants resemble us? Will they be ...
IVF doesn’t cause low sperm counts in boy babies—Genes do
Media coverage of a recent study about infertility among boys who were conceived through IVF highlights that many misunderstand how ...
How our Neanderthal ancestry helps us survive in the modern world
For the most part, [the DNA we inherited from Neanderthals] has been detrimental...[Neanderthal DNA] has been blamed for increasing risk of depression, ...
Epigenetics and disease: No easy answers
How can epigenetics, the systems that turn genes off and on, help us understand disease? It may take a while ...
23andMe: Alt-right mistaken, DNA tests can’t ‘prove their whiteness’
A trend among members of the ultraconservative 'alt-right' movement is posting genetic test results online to prove their ‘whiteness.” They ...
DNA analysis: ‘Piltdown man’ hoax created with bones from 1 orangutan, at least 2 humans
In 1912, paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward and amateur antiquarian and solicitor Charles Dawson announced the discovery of a fossil that ...
Paleovirology explores evolutionary history of HIV in hopes of finding cure
The Malayan flying lemur is a small brown animal with buggy eyes...[A] group of Czech scientists discovered another trait of this mammal: ...
Genetics of modern Irish reveal why giants are so common in country’s folklore
Scientists at the University of Exeter Medical School were part of genetics research which could help explain the legend of ...
‘Black and white twins’: How genetics, epigenetics explain non-identical identical twins
[Identical twins Amelia and Jasmine aren't] identical...One child has dark skin, black hair and brown eyes while the other has ...
Talking Biotech: 1000 Days’ Lucy Martinez-Sullivan on using science to tackle poor nutrition in pregnant moms, infants
1000 Days' Lucy Martinez-Sullivan: Science, social awareness has reshaped nutrition for pregnant women, young children ...
White supremacists using DNA tests to prove their ‘whiteness’
[W]hite supremacists of various stripes who congregate on parts of Reddit, 4chan, and elsewhere are using the genetic testing service ...
‘Hairpin science’: Unfolding mystery of the soupy origins of life on earth
The long-sought ingredient that may have helped gene-like strands to copy themselves in puddles for the first time ever, billions ...
Using CRISPR to drive genes through a population likely to lead to ‘resistance’ in organisms
We might finally be able to beat evolution at its own game. Using the gene editing tool CRISPR...biologists can arrange ...
Growing hybrid human-chimp brains to understand intellectual differences and disease
In her own small corner of this research utopia at the human brain laboratory at the University of Cambridge, Madeleine ...
No, you did not inherit your intelligence from your mother’s genes
The premise of [a post from Second Nexus is] that science has traced “intelligence genes” to the X chromosome and ...
Has human life span reached its limit?
Human life expectancy has steadily increased since the nineteenth century. Reports of supercentenarians...have prompted some to suggest that there is ...
