The only requirement for assuming the position of US Secretary for Health and Human Services is being picked by the President and…
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post A Pop Quiz in Biology for RFK JrRead more
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post Probing Poop for Pathogen DNA: Diarrhea Genomics, a First-World Advance Contrasts with USAID Cuts in AfricaRead more
When I saw a news release describing a test in development to sequence pathogen genomes in diarrhea, my geneticist side was, at…
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post Something in the Air – Environmental DNA UpdateRead more
DNA is the calling card of life. In and on our bodies, traces of DNA sequences other than our own announce the…
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post Owning A Dog May Protect Against EczemaRead more
About 100 million adults and 100 million children worldwide have the red, flaky, itchy skin of the most common form of eczema…
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post A Trio of Novels Based on Rare Genetic Disease: Middlesex, The Covenant of Water, and The SirensRead more
I love when fiction unfurls a compelling tale whose protagonist has an ultrarare genetic disease. My most recent favorite is The Sirens…
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post CRISPR Gene Editing Outpaces Gene Therapy: The Groundbreaking Case of KJ MuldoonRead more
Nine-month-old KJ Muldoon made global headlines following a report in The New England Journal of Medicine, from Kiran Musunuru and Becca Ahrens-Nicklas…
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post How Flowers Came to Smell like Rotted Flesh: Another Genetic Just-So StoryRead more
Not all flowers emit odors that are enticing to humans. Three types of flowering plants – Asarum simile, Eurya japonica, and Symplocarpus…
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post The Absurdity of Governments Defining Biological SexRead more
It’s odd for me, as a long-time author of college biology textbooks, to witness governments rule on the nature of biological sex…
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post Nixing the Newborn Screening Advisory Committee Is Ill-AdvisedRead more
Next month, families affected by the rare genetic disease metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) will meet in Washington. They will be protesting the April…
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post  “De-extincted” Dire Wolf Pups Have a Few Genetic Tweaks – That’s ItRead more
The images of “de-extincted” fuzzy white dog-wolf pups festooning the media this week accompany reports that are so hyped that the technical…
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post The Sunflower House Reveals the Horror of Himmler’s Lebensborn ProgramRead more
Hitler’s “final solution” attempted to strip the German population of Jewish people and others deemed not white. At the same time, the…
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post Why I Deleted My 23andMe Data. Will an Ancestry Chart Become a Yellow Star?Read more
When I heard that 23andMe had filed for bankruptcy, I wasn’t alarmed, at first. I’d taken a test from the company, years…