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…
-
post Cataracts and Amyloid Beta: Early Marker and New Drug Target?Read more
-
post A New Biological Aging Clock: Ribosomal DNARead more
Chronological aging is easy to track – birthdays. Biological aging can be obvious too – graying hair, sagging skin, and other inexorable…
-
post Are Eurocentric Genetic Databases Hampering Health Care?Read more
A commentary published today in the journal Cell offers evidence of a stunning imbalance in the population groups that participate in genetic and…
-
post How DNA Ancestry Testing is Like the Wheel of Fortune: Filling in the BlanksRead more
“Ricki, we have another one.” AncestryDNA has spit out yet another half-sibling. I’m a curious hybrid, a geneticist and an “NPE” – “not…
-
post Rare Disease Day 2019: Roan’s StoryRead more
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…
-
post Measles and an Outbreak of Science IlliteracyRead more
On January 22, the World Health Organization declared anti-vaxxers a “Top Threat to Global Health in 2019.” The agency specified “ vaccine hesitancy&rdquo…
-
post Baboon Genomes Offer Clues to the Past and Future of HumanityRead more
“Once upon a time, in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, different types of ancient peoples were having sex,&rdquo…
-
post 300th Post at DNA Science TodayRead more
This is my 300th blog post for DNA Science. I’m so grateful to Public Library of Science for enabling me to comment so…
-
post A New Memoir about Donor Conception Confronts Genetic DeterminismRead more
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…
-
post New Recipe for Fecal Transplants to Treat Ulcerative Colitis: Multiple Donors and Ditch the OxygenRead more
The secret to a fecal transplant that treats ulcerative colitis might be a change in the recipe and preparation: pool stool from…
-
post Museum Genomes Explain the Plight of the Grauer’s GorillaRead more
When a population rapidly plummets, the chance sampling of genetic drift and inevitable inbreeding can accelerate the pace of extinction. A new…
-
post How Bandersnatch Mirrors a Cancer JourneyRead more
A few minutes into watching the compelling new Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, in which the viewer chooses the story path, I realized that…