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Genetics
Once land plants, seagrasses staged one of evolution’s boldest reversals — returning to the ocean and reinventing their biology to thrive beneath the waves.
The “dystopian” biotech imagined in these novels is now changing real lives for the better.
It's time to write the human genome, argues microbiologist Andrew Hessel.
In “The Secret History of Denisovans,” Silvana Condemi and François Savatier trace the story of our mysterious hominin ancestor.
After more than a million years of separation, two branches of humanity reunited around 300,000 years ago, suggests new research.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
These books helped build the empirical case that life's origins differ from those described in myths and legends.
When it comes to behavior, genetics may play a larger role than you think.
Whether your hair is straight, wavy, curly, or kinky isn't just genetic in nature. It depends on the physics of your hair's very atoms.
Early modern humans interbred with Neanderthals — and scientists recently pinpointed a key site of contact.
Kurzweil predicts that AI will combine with biotechnology to defeat degenerative diseases this decade. Then things will get really interesting.
Cancers can’t develop without genetic mutations — or can they?
A study of spinal development took a strange turn and made a surprise discovery.
CRISPR study helps answer a question that has long puzzled scientists.
Is it genes or their special bond that drives identical twins to offend at similar rates?
Genes are sometimes called the “blueprint of life,” but that doesn't make them the behavioral playbook.
The Uros of Lake Titicaca live on floating islands made from reeds. How did they get there?
Britain is profiling the genes, health and lifestyles of its citizens and handing the results to scientists across the world.
Could subfertility be an under-explored factor in autism risk?
The first-of-its-kind map, which goes all the way down to the level of a single cell, could help prevent common birth defects.
These nematodes complicate how we understand evolutionary lineages.
There is currently no easy way to treat high Lp(a). A single shot could change that.
Stem cells from a fetus can live within the mother for decades — and help her heal.
After turning up hundreds of genes with hard-to-predict effects, some scientists are now probing the grander developmental processes that shape face geometry.
In December 2022, a company called BioAge Labs published findings on a drug that worked to prevent muscular atrophy, or the loss of muscle strength and mass, in older people.
A cure may be on the horizon.
A new study provides the first proof-of-principle that genetic material transferred from one species to another can increase both longevity and healthspan in the recipient animal.
This biochemist is determined to create a new life form by reversing the shape of molecules.
Every astrobiologist wants to find an alien. But the public should be skeptical when the "aliens" look like tiny humans.
The potential benefits of returning the thylacine to Australia make the project worth the effort.