Ultrarare genetic diseases often appear with a series of symptoms that might seem unconnected. Brooke Harrison Ramirez’s pregnancy had been easy eight…
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post An Ultrarare Liver Disease, PFIC2: Trinity’s Story
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post Milkweed Bug Genome Revealed
I’ll admit that I have long admired the beauty of the large milkweed bug Oncopeltus fasciatus, without knowing anything about it. So…
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post Cataracts and Amyloid Beta: Early Marker and New Drug Target?
I’ve just had cataract surgeries, so I wasn’t thrilled to find a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…
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post A New Biological Aging Clock: Ribosomal DNA
Chronological aging is easy to track – birthdays. Biological aging can be obvious too – graying hair, sagging skin, and other inexorable…
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post Are Eurocentric Genetic Databases Hampering Health Care?
A commentary published today in the journal Cell offers evidence of a stunning imbalance in the population groups that participate in genetic and…
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post How DNA Ancestry Testing is Like the Wheel of Fortune: Filling in the Blanks
“Ricki, we have another one.” AncestryDNA has spit out yet another half-sibling. I’m a curious hybrid, a geneticist and an “NPE” – “not…
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post Rare Disease Day 2019: Roan’s Story
For 2019’s Rare Disease Day, DNA Science honors those who have fragile X syndrome (FXS). It isn’t among the rarest of the rare…
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post Measles and an Outbreak of Science Illiteracy
On January 22, the World Health Organization declared anti-vaxxers a “Top Threat to Global Health in 2019.” The agency specified “ vaccine hesitancy&rdquo…
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post Baboon Genomes Offer Clues to the Past and Future of Humanity
“Once upon a time, in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, different types of ancient peoples were having sex,&rdquo…
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post 300th Post at DNA Science Today
This is my 300th blog post for DNA Science. I’m so grateful to Public Library of Science for enabling me to comment so…
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post A New Memoir about Donor Conception Confronts Genetic Determinism
In her just-released memoir “Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love,” Dani Shapiro tells of discovering that she was donor-conceived. The subtext of…
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post New Recipe for Fecal Transplants to Treat Ulcerative Colitis: Multiple Donors and Ditch the Oxygen
The secret to a fecal transplant that treats ulcerative colitis might be a change in the recipe and preparation: pool stool from…