Remember the tv show Hercules that presented tales of the adventures of Hercules and Iolaus? Well, they had more interesting adventures than even that good series was capable of showing. According to Plutarch, the fidelity of Iolaus to Hercules (but not vice versa) was so famed that male couples would use him as an example and profess their ( Read more... )

I was going to start by saying that herpes is a fascinating virus. But then I realized that I thought the same of the cold virus... and HIV. So maybe I'm just fascinated in general by the simple complexity of any virus. Maybe it helps that I don't have the same "ooh, ick" reaction to herpes that other people do. I never learned of it as a ( Read more... )

New research from the Children's Hospital of Boston finds several new genes implicated in some forms of autism. They ran a study involving 104 Middle Eastern families (88 of which had cousin marriages, increasing the likelihood of transmission for rare mutations), looking for recessive genes that could be linked to autism diagnoses. They found ( Read more... )

As I mentioned earlier in my daydream list, I thought it would be a good idea to genetically engineer a plant to become a self-contained complete source of nutrients for humans. It turns out, someone is doing exactly that. They're working on a plant called cassava which looks something like a yam. It's an interesting choice as a food source, ( Read more... )

Everything that your cells are capable of producing is recorded in your genetics, the arrangement of base pairs in the spiral-staircase-shaped molecule of your DNA. The sequence of those base pairs are step-by-step recipes for producing the molecules that your body needs to exist.   The DNA, however, is a junked up basement chock full of recipes ( Read more... )

Well, a new study shows that there is actually a link of some kind between autism diagnosis and proximity to environmental mercury exposure. Not only that, but it shows a statistically significant link between risk level and distance from the mercury source such that "... community autism prevalence is reduced by 1 percent to 2 percent with each ( Read more... )

Two important genetic discoveries announced today.

1) It's happened before with TRIM5 gene

Monkeys have, more than once, evolved a genetic defense to lentiviruses (which includes HIV). "An intriguing possibility is that the newly formed genes prevented infection by prehistoric viruses related to modern AIDS viruses. If so, this could mean that AIDS- ( Read more... )

There is no such thing as "race". If you want my official skin hue, then surely we can create devices that would shine a light on our skin and then measure the color that's reflected back. Skin color is real, but race is not. If you want to know about the slant of my eyes and the form of the skin folds there, then surely we can create a way to ( Read more... )

Here's a report that may be of interest to the "locals".  A Minnesota fossil has helped to pin down the date, 96 million years ago, when insects started playing a role in plant pollination. Apparently air pollinators make their little pollen grains solitary so that they're easy to suspend in a small breeze and get carried to another plant. Insect ( Read more... )

I have an idea. A very silly and yet very dangerous idea. An idea that humans are already in the midst of a speciation event.

No, I don't mean X-Men superpower mutants (or ninja turtles), although the consequences are equally momentous. I mean just plainly that Mother Nature is experimenting with new varieties, the same as She always does, and ( Read more... )