Pesticides have a direct impact on the physiology and behavior of earthworms, a Danish/French research team reports after having studied earthworms that were exposed to pesticides over generations. “We see that the worms have developed methods to detoxify themselves, so that they can live in soil sprayed with fungicide. They spend a lot of energy on detoxifying, and that comes…
One in a thousand children in the United States is deaf, and one in three adults will experience significant hearing loss after the age of 65. Whether the result of genetic or environmental factors, hearing loss costs billions of dollars in healthcare expenses every year, making the search for a cure critical. Now a team of researchers led by Karen…
ISG Director, Eric Vilain, and his research team have published a paper titled “Mutant Cohesin in Premature Ovarian Failure” in the premier medical journal New England Journal of Medicine SUMMARY: Premature ovarian failure is a major cause of female infertility. The genetic causes of this disorder remain unknown in most patients. Using whole-exome sequence analysis of a large consanguineous family with inherited…
Pretend to hurt to get out of work or school? Researchers led by a UC San Diego scientist have found a way to give you a real pain. The researchers have developed a computer system that detects whether pain is faked. And it’s far more accurate than the best human observers. With more development, the system could find uses helping doctors…
Keeping track of what we reveal about ourselves each day—through email and text messages, Amazon purchases and Facebook “likes”—is hard enough. Imagine a future when Big Data has access not only to your shopping habits, but also to your DNA and other deeply personal data collected about our bodies and behavior—and about the inner workings of our proteins and cells.…
Ew, boys! A species of spider monkey has been found to live in strictly sexually segregated societies, apparently because the males attack the females if they spend too much time together. They are the first non-human primate species known to systematically separate along gender lines. Geoffroy’s spider monkeys, Ateles Geoffroyi, live in loose groups of a few dozen individuals, and anecdotal evidence…