The Scientist
Viewpoint: Consumer DNA tests promise more than they can deliver
Over the past few years, many [DNA testing companies] have branched out into the realm of precision health, treading into ...
GAANTRY: USDA develops ‘gene-stacking’ solution to fungal pathogens—but will it actually work?
If climate change is the new normal, farmers in some regions of the world will have to get used to ...
Are age-related diseases the result of evolutionary tradeoffs favoring the young?
While granting human species some advantages over our primate cousins, recent genomic adaptations appear to have come at a cost ...
Does sunshine make us smarter? UV exposure boosts mouse brainpower
The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a major cause of skin cancer, but it offers some health benefits too, such ...
Using patient registries to track effectiveness of cell and gene therapy trials
Due to advances in rare-disease research and individualized cell and gene therapies, there has been a recent crop of treatments ...
What a headache: Genetic adaptation to cold weather also gave us migraines
A human genetic variant in a gene involved in sensing cold temperatures became more common when early humans migrated out of ...
Gene therapy research gets boost from parent-led crowdfunding
It’s a compelling narrative: A parent learns that his or her child has a fatal disease with no cure, and, ...
What can we learn from bacteria that eat antibiotics for fuel?
Some bacteria take antibiotic resistance a step further: they chow down on the very compounds designed to kill microbes and ...
How we can make vaccines more effective in newborns
The immune system is known for its ability to remember its response to pathogens, leading to more efficient clearance of ...
Hatchery-raised vs wild-born coho salmon: Containment sites may alter epigenome, hurting survival in the wild
[Biologist Louis Bernatchez of Quebec’s Laval University] and his colleagues set out to search for evidence of a different kind of hatchery adaptation, ...
Bee-friendly pesticides? Protein discovery could lead to less toxic neonicotinoid insecticides
[S]tudies have shown that not all the compounds are equally toxic to [honeybees], suggesting that there might be variation in ...
Decades-old immunosuppressant drug rapamycin could extend life
In the 1990s, pharmacologist Dave Sharp of the University of Texas’s Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies in San ...
Are brains of transgender people wired differently?
In recent years, US society has seen a sea change in the perception of transgender people, with celebrities such as ...
Is there a difference in the toxic effects of glyphosate versus herbicides like Roundup that include surfactants?
Glyphosate is rarely used on its own in the field. Herbicide formulations as a whole include a variety of other ...
Advances in crop microbiome research could revolutionize agriculture
Editor's note: Davide Bulgarelli is a principal investigator at the University of Dundee in the UK. His research aims at understanding the ...
Autism researchers focus on ‘retired’ line of mice with missing gene
Nearly 20 years ago, a new strain of mice debuted in a California laboratory. The mice were missing a gene ...
Hot stuff: Do human pheromones really exist?
Some companies, such as the Athena Institute, which, according to its founder, Winnifred Cutler, published its 108th consecutive ad in The Atlantic this month, ...
‘Personal omics’: Weight changes affect what’s happening in our gut, disease susceptibility
Gaining and losing weight causes extensive changes in the gut microbiota and in biomarkers related to inflammation and heart disease, ...
Gay genes identified? Research met with ‘severe criticism’
Scanning the genomes of 1,077 homosexual men and 1,231 heterosexual men, researchers identified several genetic regions with multiple single nucleotide ...
Fighting infectious diseases with immunotherapy on ‘cusp of commercialization’
Immunotherapy, which involves adapting immune cells to destroy specific cellular targets, has made a name for itself treating cancer. But ...
Getting behind the genetics of high-altitude adjustments
People who both travel to and live at high altitudes typically cope with lower oxygen levels by increasing red blood ...
100 billion neurons make up our brain—how does it all work?
[Editor's note: Sara Linker and Tracy Bedrosian are postdoctoral research fellows in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute for ...
Life-forming water droplets could have jump-started early evolution
Reactions in tiny droplets of water may have given rise to some of the molecules essential for the origin of ...
Seeking human consciousness at the cellular level
To define human consciousness at the neuronal level is among the most difficult of tasks for neuroscience. Still, researchers have ...
Evidence confirms likely link between regular exercise and reduced cancer risk
Researchers have long recognized an epidemiological link between exercise and a lower risk of certain cancers, including breast cancer. But ...
Genome destruction: CRISPR used to remove entire Y chromosome in mice
Researchers have managed to wipe out an entire mouse chromosome using CRISPR-Cas9. They aimed numerous double-strand breaks at either the ...
Human ‘tree rings’? Neuroimaging predicts life span and brain age
In recent years, scientists have plumbed the molecular depths of the body and surfaced with tell-tale biomarkers of aging, some ...
Not fool-proof: Gene drive’s greatest weakness is random DNA mutations
Gene drive is a technology that could squelch insect-borne diseases, by forcing deleterious traits engineered into the animals’ DNA to ...