Genetics

Gimlet’s Union Drive, Twisted Graphene, and Psychedelic Mice: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Well, folks, it’s just a few hours shy of the turn of the month, and you know what that means: April Fool’s Day. Yes, it’s that special time of year when insipid brands, mean-spirited teens, and tech titans compete to be the first to trick you into thinking they released Skittle’s… For Men, that it’s…

Tech News Tom McKay Mar 31

FDA Lifts Import Ban on Genetically Modified Salmon That Reach Market Twice as Fast

The Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that it is lifting an import ban that prevented a brand of genetically modified salmon—dubbed “Frankenfish” by some—from reaching U.S. shopping selves, CNN reported. The FDA originally cleared AquaAdvantage salmon, which is genetically engineered to grow year-round and thus reach the market twice as fast as unmodified…

Biology Tom McKay Mar 9

Robocall Hell, Divination Bot Returns, and a Fake MD: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

The winds of time blow strangely here, in our unfortunate state of internet-enabled perpetual present, but how the heck is it already March? This is not a rhetorical question. If you could explain this to me, that would be great. Yet in keeping pace with the relentless march of seconds turning into minutes turning into…

Tech News Tom McKay Mar 3

Fake FCC Comments, Shark DNA, and the Edge of Everything: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Hopefully your week has been better than leading New York politicians, like NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew “Amazon” Cuomo—both of whom are still dealing with the disastrous fallout from the failed deal to subsidize a new Amazon facility in Queens’s Long Island City neighborhood. (Adding insult to injury: de Blasio, who has…

Tech News Tom McKay Feb 24

Newly Decoded Great White Shark Genome Hints at Why They’re So Indestructible

The great white shark is impressively terrifying (though not actually much of a threat to humans). But a new study shows that the animal is also an impressive feat of evolution. For the first time, scientists say they’ve fully unspooled the genome of the great white, a discovery that will help us better understand why sharks…

Biology Ed Cara Feb 19

Gene Therapy for the Most Common Form of Blindness Gets Its First Human Test

An 80-year-old woman from the United Kingdom is the first patient to undergo gene therapy to treat age-related macular degeneration—the most common cause of sight loss in the world. It’s too early to tell if the procedure worked, reports the BBC, but for the millions of people around the world at risk of developing age-related…

Biology George Dvorsky Feb 19

AI Finds Traces of a Lost Species in Human DNA

Buried deep within the DNA of Asian individuals is a genetic clue pointing to the existence of an unknown human ancestor. Remarkably, it wasn’t a human who reached this startling conjecture, but rather an artificially intelligent algorithm. Welcome to archaeology in the 21st century. New research published last week in Nature Communications suggests a yet-to-be…

Human History George Dvorsky Jan 25

China’s Latest Cloned-Monkey Experiment Is an Ethical Mess

Chinese researchers have cloned five gene-edited monkeys with a host of genetic disease symptoms, according to two scientific papers published today. The researchers say they want to use the gene-edited macaques for biomedical research; basically, they hope that engineering sick primates will reduce the total number of macaques used in research around the world. But…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 23

Biology Lab Strips James Watson of All Honorary Titles After ‘Reprehensible’ Race Remarks

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has stripped James Watson, the 90-year-old Nobel Prize-winning scientist famous for determining the double-helix structure of DNA with his partner Francis Crick in the 1950s based on research conducted by British chemist Rosalind Franklin, of all his honorary titles after the laboratory deemed his recent remarks on race “reprehensible,”…

Biology Tom McKay Jan 13

A Lifelong Biodome Experiment Could Reveal How the Immune System Shapes Personality

It’s the sort of realization that ought to make you existentially terrified: All of your thoughts and actions are influenced by countless interconnected factors, most of which you are never conscious of. Geneticist and immunologist Joshua Milner, a senior researcher at the National Institutes of Health, and other scientists have their own radical theory about…

Science Ed Cara Jan 9

A Bulldog’s Screw Tail Might Help Us Understand a Rare Genetic Disease in People

One of the most distinctive body parts of your typical English bulldog, French bulldog, or Boston terrier—their coiled screw tail—might be caused by a specific genetic mutation, suggests recent research. And more importantly for us humans, that same genetic quirk might help scientists better understand a rare disorder in people. Bulldogs and terriers are some…

Biology Ed Cara Jan 4

Eastern Lowland Gorillas Heading Towards ‘Genetic Meltdown’

Eastern lowland gorillas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have endured dramatic population declines in recent decades, leading to a startling lack of genetic diversity and a slew of harmful mutations, according to new research. By comparing the genomes of living eastern lowland gorillas, also known as Grauer’s gorillas, with genomes derived from museum…

Conservation George Dvorsky Dec 27

Don’t Take the DNA Test You’ll Probably Get for Christmas

This year, you and your loved ones may have come across ads for a great gift to give this holiday season: cheaper-than-ever home DNA-testing kits sold by companies like 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and Ancestry. And judging by the numbers, these companies’ sales pitches have been a wild success for them, especially in 2018. Just a few…

Reviews Ed Cara Dec 19

Chinese Government Says It Has Shut Down Controversial Human Gene-Editing Project

A project claiming to have produced the world’s first gene-edited babies has been stopped by the Chinese government, which is declaring the work of scientist He Jiankui as being both unlawful and unethical, according to the Associated Press. The world learned of He’s experiment earlier this week, though we’re still waiting to see outside scientific…

Health George Dvorsky Nov 29

Rogue Scientist Defends Gene-Edited Babies—and Reveals a Second Pregnancy

Speaking at a genetics conference in Hong Kong earlier today, embattled Chinese scientist He Jiankui said he was “proud” to have created the world’s first genetically edited babies, despite receiving near-universal condemnation from his peers. Speaking publicly today for the first time, the scientist offered new details about his unauthorized, clandestine project—including news of another…

Biology George Dvorsky Nov 28

Bizarre Microbes Represent a Major New Branch on the Evolutionary Family Tree

Canadian scientists have identified microscopic creatures that are so unlike anything seen before, they had to create an entirely new branch on the evolutionary tree of life to slot them in. A new paper published this week in Nature offers the first genetic analysis of hemimastigotes—a rare and poorly understood group of single-celled microorganisms. Biologists…

Tech News George Dvorsky Nov 16

Upsettingly Large Fungus in Michigan Weighs 440 Tons and Is 2,500 Years Old

It’s nicknamed the “humongous fungus”—an unusually large fungal growth belonging to a single genetic individual. An updated analysis of this gigantic fungal beast shows it’s substantially larger and older than scientists initially thought. This single genetic individual, known as C1, belongs to a species of fungus called Armillaria gallica, otherwise known as the honey mushroom.…

Tech News George Dvorsky Nov 14

Three New DNA Studies Are Shaking Up the History of Humans in the Americas

It’s a huge day for archaeologists and anyone interested in the history of America’s first settlers. Findings from three new genetics studies—all released today—are presenting a fascinating, yet complex, picture of the first people in North and South America, and how they spread and diversified across two continents. Our understanding of how the Americas were…

Human History George Dvorsky Nov 8

FDA Approves New 23andMe Pharmacogenetic Reports, But There Are Some Caveats

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Wednesday that it has approved the marketing of 23andMe’s reports on pharmacogenetics, which the genetic-testing company claims are designed to assess whether genetics may affect an individual’s ability to metabolize certain drugs including antidepressants. The company is characterizing the move as the “first authorization of a direct-to-consumer…

Health Catie Keck Oct 31

There Are More Tiger Types Than We Thought, New Genetic Analysis Reveals

Tigers seem pretty straightforward: stripes, sharp claws, awe-inspiring grace wielded by hundreds of pounds of rippling muscle, fondness of sugary cereal, etc. But new research on the big cats’ DNA is the latest indication that underneath that striking orange and black pelage, not all tigers are the same. Scientists are now reporting that tigers are…

Conservation Jake Buehler Oct 27

Gimlet’s Union Drive, Twisted Graphene, and Psychedelic Mice: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

FDA Lifts Import Ban on Genetically Modified Salmon That Reach Market Twice as Fast

Robocall Hell, Divination Bot Returns, and a Fake MD: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Fake FCC Comments, Shark DNA, and the Edge of Everything: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Newly Decoded Great White Shark Genome Hints at Why They’re So Indestructible

Gene Therapy for the Most Common Form of Blindness Gets Its First Human Test

AI Finds Traces of a Lost Species in Human DNA

China’s Latest Cloned-Monkey Experiment Is an Ethical Mess

Biology Lab Strips James Watson of All Honorary Titles After ‘Reprehensible’ Race Remarks

A Lifelong Biodome Experiment Could Reveal How the Immune System Shapes Personality

A Bulldog’s Screw Tail Might Help Us Understand a Rare Genetic Disease in People

Eastern Lowland Gorillas Heading Towards ‘Genetic Meltdown’

Don’t Take the DNA Test You’ll Probably Get for Christmas

Chinese Government Says It Has Shut Down Controversial Human Gene-Editing Project

Rogue Scientist Defends Gene-Edited Babies—and Reveals a Second Pregnancy

Bizarre Microbes Represent a Major New Branch on the Evolutionary Family Tree

Upsettingly Large Fungus in Michigan Weighs 440 Tons and Is 2,500 Years Old

Three New DNA Studies Are Shaking Up the History of Humans in the Americas

FDA Approves New 23andMe Pharmacogenetic Reports, But There Are Some Caveats

There Are More Tiger Types Than We Thought, New Genetic Analysis Reveals

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