genetics

Alzheimer's disease has plagued one large Colombian family for generations, striking down half of its members in the prime of life. But one member of that family evaded what had seemed would be fate: Despite inheriting the genetic defect…

Genetically speaking, we are individuals different from each other because of slight variations in our DNA sequences -- so-called genetic variants -- some of which have dramatic effects we can see and comprehend, from the color of our eyes…

When it came to the substantial number that were unknown, the team conducted one more study, using the best understood (at the genetic level) organism of all: Drosophila melanogaster. These fruit flies have been the subject of research for…

Struggling to shave seconds off your Park Run PB -- don't worry scientists have revealed it could all be down to your genetics. Researchers at the University of Essex discovered less than 31% of people have the unique makeup to make the…

Gideon Lichfield: OK, but let me play the synthetic biology devil's advocate for a second.Lauren Goode: OK, OK.Gideon Lichfield: When you have kids, you are throwing the genetic dice, you are mixing your DNA and that of your partners,…

Meanwhile, Hanna’s team in Israel was growing mouse embryo models in a similar way, as they described in a paper in Cell that was published shortly before the paper from Zernicka-Goetz’s group. Hanna’s models too were made solely from…

The new paper is the result of herculean computational analyses, involving researchers in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, to better understand the role ancient retroviruses play in early embryonic development—how they harm, and how…

Next, they got patients from a hair transplant clinic to donate follicles, then grafted those healthy hairs onto mice. Follicles normally undergo a sort of shock after a transplant, going dormant for a couple months. Plikus suspected that…

Humans contain multitudes. Each person on the planet contains enough DNA to stretch to Pluto -- several times. Studying how all this genetic material works, and especially how genes influence human behavior, is an enormously complicated…

In 2008, a fruit fly known as the spotted-wing drosophila made its way from Southeast Asia to the continental US, likely hitching a ride on fruit shipments. First detected in California raspberry fields, the insect rapidly spread to other…