Guided by the work of Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953, a finding that gave rise to the modern field of molecular biology. It was by understanding DNA’s double-helix form that science was able to begin unravelling the many mysteries of genetic…
The Bajau people of Malaysia and the Philippines are renowned for their free-diving abilities, often working eight-hour shifts in search of fish and other sea critters. Underwater sessions can last upwards of two minutes, with accumulated daily totals of breath-holding often reaching five hours. New research suggests…
Science textbooks will tell you that the human body has just a couple hundred types of cells. But efforts to catalog all the cells in the human body suggest that number is a multiple many, many times larger.
When you mail off a sample of your spit to find out about your ancestry, companies like 23andMe compare your DNA to other people around the world, seeing how closely your genes match the genes of people in, say, Norway, in order to deduce whether your ancestors might have been Norwegian, too.
Recent advancements in science and medicine have put cures within reach for diseases that have long plagued humankind.
Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492, but some experts say Polynesian explorers beat him to it. There’s little evidence to support this fringe theory, but scientists have pointed to the presence of sweet potatoes, a plant thought to be native to the Americas, in the South Pacific as potential proof. A…
In a provocative opinion published Monday in STAT, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki argues that home DNA test customers don’t need experts to help them interpret genetic health risk reports. Wojcicki compares her company’s health reports, which tell people whether they are at risk of developing certain diseases, to at-home…
You know the first week of April 2018 was a weird one when it began with a horrific shooting at YouTube’s headquarters and ended with President Donald Trump’s New York City skyscraper catching fire, tragically killing one person, and somehow Facebook’s ongoing screw-up continued to top the headlines. It’s enough to…
In the late 1990s, as Esteban Burchard was finishing up his medical training at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, newspaper headlines blared warnings about what appeared to be a growing asthma epidemic.
It’s become a familiar story in the age of consumer DNA testing: A person spits into a test tube to learn more about their genetic heritage, and ends up finding out they have a parent or sibling they didn’t know existed. It can be hard to keep family secrets under wraps when all it takes to reveal them is $99 and a…
From its perch on the Baltic Sea, the tiny former Soviet nation of Estonia has become an unlikely leader in all things digital. Its government has already embraced blockchain, declared Internet access a basic human right, and embarked on a massive undertaking to become a “digital society” where everything from…
For nearly two years now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been quietly giving the go-ahead to a handful of crops that have been genetically engineered using CRISPR. Editing the DNA of people and animals may be controversial, but when it comes to plants, the agency has taken the stance that as long as the…
Last May, a journal published results suggesting that the revolutionary gene-editing technique CRISPR might actually be quite dangerous. The paper caused a bit of turmoil in the biotech world, which is looking to CRISPR as a major disease-fighting tool of the future. But it didn’t take long for the study to attract…
Last summer, a study claiming that the gene-editing technique CRISPR might actually be dangerous whipped labs around the biotech world into a frenzy. Researchers found that when they used CRISPR to cure blindness by changing DNA in mice, it resulted in not just a few but more than a thousand unintended effects on…
Not long ago, decrypting DNA was an expensive undertaking that could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, for $199 you can spit into a test tube and find out about your ancestry, your risk of developing Alzheimer’s, and even how likely you are to smell asparagus in your pee.
Here’s a riddle: If an alien life form is, well, alien, how will we know what it is? DNA and RNA are the building blocks of life on Earth, but the molecules of life might differ substantially on another planet. So if scientists combing, say, the potentially habitable waters of Jupiter’s moon Europa were to stumble…
Back in 2003, a strange skeleton was discovered in a deserted Chilean town in the Atacama Desert. Featuring an elongated skull, sunken eye sockets, and an impossibly tiny body, some suggested it was of extraterrestrial origin. An updated genetic analysis confirms the skeleton as being human—but with an unprecedented…
Heath data is some of the most sensitive information out there, and modern life sometimes puts that information at risk of being exposed. Hackers could break into insurance company records and steal customer medical information. A hospital you’ve visited could experience a data breach. You could spit in a tube to find…
Pregnancy is hard on the body. But for women with two specific genetic variants, it may be especially difficult.
Cockroaches have been one of humanity’s most unwanted, yet admirably persistent, roommates for thousands of years. But despite our reluctant intimacy, there’s still a lot we don’t understand about these insects. A new study, published today in Nature Communication, unpacks the genes that make roaches tick—and helps…
