Guardian
Creativity and mental illness share genetic markers
The notion of the tortured artist is a stubborn meme. Creativity, it states, is fuelled by the demons that artists ...
Making case for organics: Costs more but ‘you should buy it anyway’ because of fewer chemicals
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Loud voices dismiss organic ...
Genetics, social trends lead moms to delay having children
Women are starting families later in life despite an apparently stronger genetic drive to have children when they are younger, ...
Human germline gene editing too complex for black-and-white moral framing
The first day of BEINGS2015, “A Gathering of Global Thought Leaders to Reach Consensus on the Direction of Biotechnology for the ...
How every living European is related to Charlemagne, and why this is entirely unremarkable
Sometimes I get asked if I’m related to the great physicist Ernest Rutherford. His discoveries about the atomic nucleus gave ...
Critics decry synbio vanillin for its perceived impact on poor farmers
On its journey from the fields in Madagascar to your ice cream, sponge cake and chocolate, the vanilla plant is ...
Are genetic ancestry companies taking you for a ride?
I can reveal that I am a direct descendent of someone of similar greatness: Charlemagne, Carolingian King of the Franks, ...
Is it possible to bring the extinct woolly mammoth back to life?
Extinction, it seems, may no longer be for ever. Recently, scientists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University announced that ...
Is it dehumanizing to call children born with disabilities ‘divine’?
My brother was born with Down’s syndrome and for most of his life, people have been making it a point ...
Bees may become ‘addicted’ to neonics
Bees may become addicted to nicotine-like pesticides in the same way humans get hooked on cigarettes, according to a new ...
EU to approve import of 17 GM foods as part of trade deal
Seventeen new genetically modified food products will be authorised for import to Europe before the end of May in a ...
New Alzheimer’s research illuminates origins of disease
The hope that Alzheimer’s will one day be curable has in recent years faded to a flicker as successive clinical ...
Big Data comes to farming, thanks to Monsanto: Sustainable, higher yields–and controversy
David Friedberg, CEO of The Climate Corporation, expected pushback when he decided to sell his San Francisco-based big data company ...
Committing sex crimes may be influenced largely by genetics
Brothers of men convicted of sexual offences are five times more likely than average to commit the same types of ...
Do the most successful students always make the best teachers?
There are those who think that the tough race to become a teacher in Finland is the key to good ...
Sharing genomic data speeds cassava breeding for African farmers
When the time comes to harvest cassava, a subsistence farmer in Africa – often a woman – hauls them to ...
Public engagement in science matters key to solving ethical dilemmas
The need for researchers to escape the lab or the seminar room from time to time, and talk to the ...
Genetic Adam and Eve may have lived around same time, study shows
Humans are evolving more rapidly than previously thought, according to the largest ever genetics study of a single population. Scientists ...
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 ...
UN research groups concludes weedkiller glyphosate ‘probably’ causes cancer
Roundup, the world’s most widely used weedkiller, “probably” causes cancer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. The International Agency ...
Is free will an illusion? Genes may determine more than you think
Whenever you read stories about identical twins separated at birth, they tend to follow the template set by the most ...
British farmers abandoning less sustainable, more costly organic techniques
Even as demand for organic food remains high, the farmers producing it are falling by the wayside. UK government figures ...
Why human pheromone myth persists despite lack of scientific evidence
Every year around Valentine's Day, there is a rash of stories in the news about sexy smells and pheromones. You ...
AAAS presidents: ‘Anti-GMO harassment of best scientific thinkers must stop now’
In the latest organised attack on science, 14 senior U.S. scientists are being targeted by anti-GM lobby group U.S. Right ...
Man’s best friend also our closest evolutionary ally
Dogs are humanity’s oldest friends, renowned for their loyalty and abilities to guard, hunt and chase. But modern humans may ...
Genetics’ shaky history with racism contrary to what science says
As someone who writes about evolution and genetics – both of which involve the study of inheritance, and both of ...
How the UK House of Commons was swayed to approve 3-parent IVF
If you have been following the debate about whether to allow the new IVF technique of mitochondrial donation, which was ...
Deposed EU scientific advisor Anne Glover says Greenpeace lied to oust her
The former chief scientific adviser to the European commission has accused environmental groups of “manufacturing” claims that they knew to ...
