The obsessive thieving and stashing of seeds by rodents provides a vital seed-dispersal service in tropical forests, say scientists whose research may solve a long standing puzzle in ecology. The new findings are based on research conducted in Panama and appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The mystery stems from […]
University of Michigan scientists running a human trial of the first ever gene therapy treatment for pain relief say that the virus-based vector which triggers the expression of a naturally occurring opioid appears to provide substantial pain relief. Their study, published in the Annals of Neurology, used a novel human-grade vector agent known as NP2. […]
Human, animals and even fish routinely reorient themselves using landmarks and mentally visualizing the geometry of their surroundings. Now, according to new research described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it appears there may also be a genetic component that plays a part in our ability to navigate the world. The study, […]
A team of scientists from Germany, Russia and Sweden have identified the regions of genetic code that are responsible for animal tameness, a discovery that could lead to the breeding of domesticated animals of species once believed to be untamable. The team’s research report, appearing in the journal GENETICS, should help animal breeders, farmers and […]
Researchers from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have discovered a vast new class of previously unrecognized mammalian genes that do not encode proteins, but instead function as long RNA molecules. The findings, appearing in the journal Nature, show that these “large intervening non-coding RNAs” (lincRNAs) play critical […]
Reporting their findings in the journalIntelligence, researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry in the UK say that men with higher intelligence tend to produce better quality sperm. This, say the researchers, suggests a closer-than-expected relationship between intelligence and evolutionary fitness. The intelligence/sperm analysis was conducted as a precursor to possible further study involving the associations […]
The decision to vote is partly genetic, say researchers James H. Fowler and Christopher T. Dawes, of the University of California, San Diego. Their research, just published in the Journal of Politics, identifies a link between two specific genes and political participation. The results suggest that, contrary to decades of conventional wisdom, family upbringing may […]
Some regions of the human genome have been hotspots for acquiring duplicated DNA sequences, but only at specific time-points during evolution. Researchers say that long periods of genomic stasis, in regard to the accretion of duplicated DNA fragments, are “punctuated” by relatively brief episodes of duplicative activity. The study, appearing in Genome Research, is the […]
Researchers from the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center are exploring a new approach to the treatment of aging, inherited diseases and cancer. Dispelling the belief that the only way to treat such conditions is by fixing or replacing damaged genes, they are instead focusing on the field of epigenetics – the study […]
