Genes
Morning Person? You Might Have Neanderthal Genes to Thank.
Neanderthals were morning people, a new study suggests. And some humans today who like getting up early might credit genes they inherited from their Neanderthal ancestors. The new study compared DNA in living humans with genetic material retrieved from Neanderthal fossils. It turns out that Neanderthals carried some of the same clock-related genetic variants as …
Genetically predicted height linked to risk for several common health conditions
A large genetic study by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs’ Million Veteran Program (MVP)) has found that a person’s height may affect their risk for several common health conditions in adulthood. Significant findings include a link between height and lower risk of coronary heart disease, and a link between height and higher risk for …
Groundbreaking technology could revolutionize the dairy industry
Might a new technological development of researchers from Tel Aviv University soon revolutionize the dairy products we consume? The initiators of the development believe that in the not-too-distant future we will be able to buy dairy products in the supermarket that are identical in taste and color to the ordinary dairy products that we consume …
New ‘nanoPCR’ technology can accurately diagnose COVID-19 in less than 20 minutes
A “nanoPCR” technology was developed for the point-of-care (POC) diagnosis of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). This new technology can diagnose the infection within ~20 minutes while retaining the accuracy of conventional reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technology. A team of researchers led by Professor CHEON Jinwoo, the director of the Center for Nanomedicine (CNM) within …
Which Genes Are Critical to Human Heart Development?
The advent of genome science has given researchers an unprecedented ability to understand the root causes of a host of conditions. Justin Cotney, assistant professor of genetics and genome sciences in the UConn School of Medicine, has used this technology to identify a suite of genes and regulatory elements critical to normal heart development. …
“Jumping” Genes, Heat Stress and Fertility
University of Oregon biologists have used a model organism to identify molecular mechanisms that produce DNA damage in sperm and contribute to male infertility following exposure to heat. In humans, the optimal temperature for sperm production is just below body temperature, in a range of about 90-95 degrees F. Human studies have found that …
Technology Will Soon Give Us Precise Control Over Our Brains and Genes
This is a story of another time, of a plausible future 30 years from now, give or take, in which the human experience of life and health (and perhaps even of who we are) will unfold unlike anything known before. The citizens of this future will learn early in life – through some combination of next-next-next-generation …
New gene technology shows 100-fold efficiency in targeting antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Taking advantage of powerful advances in CRISPR gene editing, scientists at the University of California San Diego have set their sights on one of society’s most formidable threats to human health. A research team led by Andrés Valderrama at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Surashree Kulkarni of the Division of Biological Sciences has …