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DNA forensics could help fight illegal elephant poaching

Justin Worland | 
Every year criminals around the world trade billions of dollars in products derived from wildlife. The elephant trade in particular ...

Ongoing lack of MERS vaccine inexcusable as virus spreads in South Korea

Ben Hirschler, Kate Kelland | 
Three years after the mysterious MERS virus first emerged in humans, scientists and drugmakers say there is no excuse for ...
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Ancient Kennewick man Native American, not European, DNA shows

Carl Zimmer | 
In July 1996, two college students were wading in the shallows of the Columbia River near the town of Kennewick, ...

Is routine Down syndrome screening a social justice issue?

Renate Lindeman | 
Upon delivering my first child 11 years ago, I heard the words “Down syndrome,” and my world collapsed. Visions of ...

Gene therapy treatment for bowel cancer may be on the horizon

Nick Peel | 
Bowel cancer’s origins can often be traced back to just a single faulty gene: APC – short for adenomatous polyposis coli ...

Mini ‘placenta-on-a-chip’ gives closer look at mysterious organ

Adrienne LaFrance | 
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have created a “placenta-on-a-chip,” a miniature device that uses actual human cells to ...

More teens going through gender reassignment

Anemona Hartocollis | 
It is a transgender moment. President Obama was hailed just for saying the word “transgender” in his State of the Union address this year, ...

Database of ancient human DNA opened for global public access

Robyn Mills | 
Medical and other researchers and science teachers around the world will be able to compare ancient DNA from humans from ...

Understanding HIV’s genetic code will help treat patients with greater precision

Susan Scutti | 
A virus contains its own genes, but it is able to replicate only when it gets inside the cells of ...

Regulation of mitochondrial replacement therapy needs to consider cross-generational consequences

Jessica Cussins | 
How does one go about regulating the world’s first cross-generational biological experiment in human germline modification? The regulating body in ...
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Mitochondrial medicine: Pushing the limits of resuscitation

David Warmflash | 
Mitochondria are the power plants of the cell. Along with understanding the role of mitochondria in causing damage to the ...

DDT found to dramatically raise breast cancer risk in women exposed while in womb

Lindsey Konkel | 
Women exposed in the womb to high levels of the pesticide DDT have a nearly fourfold increased risk of developing breast cancer, ...

How did humans first learn to use tools?

Chimpanzees and bonobos are the two closest living relatives of the human species - the ultimate tool-using ape. Yet, despite ...

US to end almost all research using chimpanzees

Sara Reardon | 
Chimpanzee research in the United States may be nearly over. On June 12, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) ...

CRISPR, yogurt bacteria reveal how microbe genomes evolve

Are there genome editing tools running around in that yogurt you’re eating? Don’t drop your spoon and start scraping your ...

Moms’ genes pass fatal flaws onto sons more than daughters

Laura Donnelly | 
Men are doomed by their mothers - because women pass on genetic flaws which may explain why males die sooner, ...

Synthetic internal ‘clock’ could help treat obesity

Stephanie Garlock | 
Non-scientists generally think of “circadian clock” as a metaphoric term. There’s nothing literally ticking away inside the human body, helping ...
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Preventing brain disease by eating brains? Science doesn’t support sensationalized reporting

Arvind Suresh | 
Is there a genetic cure for dementia? Recent news reports of a mutation that can protect against a deadly form ...
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DNA test to sell personalized skin care products: Scam or science?

Courtney Rubin | 
What’s being billed as the future of skin care starts suspiciously like a visit to the dentist: with a mouthwash ...

Legal battle ensues with Myiad Genetics over DNA ownership rights

Tracy Bowden | 
The High Court in Canberra has begun hearing a case pitting 69-year-old Brisbane grandmother Yvonne D'Arcy against a US biotech ...
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Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal: Debating gender and racial identity

Vanessa Vitiello Urquhart | 
Some in the queer community have summarily dismissed any possible similarities between Caitlyn Jenner - who recently came out as a trans ...

Can genetics shed light on history?

Razib Khan | 
When it comes to questions of demographic change genetic insights are key, and present data in a way that allows ...

China’s spending on genetics research making huge advances in biotech

Ben Hirschler | 
Years of pouring money into its laboratories, wooing scientists home from overseas and urging researchers to publish and patent is ...

‘Sexist’ Nobel laureate Tim Hunt’s success relied on work of women scientists

Helen Cahill | 
Professor Tim Hunt shocked the scientific community, and pretty much everyone else, with his outrageous comments about his “trouble with ...

New technique gives researchers closer look at epigenetics

Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a new technique to more precisely analyze bacterial ...

We need more accurate metaphors for DNA

Claire Ainsworth | 
Ask me what a genome is, and I, like many science writers, might mutter about it being the genetic blueprint ...

Is altruism just selfishness in disguise?

David Barash | 
Evolution proceeds by the differential reproduction of genes, so the challenge is to explain the persistence of a trait that, ...
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