Whenever you read stories about identical twins separated at birth, they tend to follow the template set by the most remarkable of them all: the “two Jims”. James Springer and James Lewis were separated as one-month-olds, adopted by different families and reunited at age 39. When University of Minnesota psychologist Thomas Bouchard met them in 1979, he found, as a…
You might resemble or act more like your mother, but a novel research study from UNC School of Medicine researchers reveal that mammals are genetically more like their dads. Specifically, the research shows that although we inherit equal amounts of genetic mutations from our parents – the mutations that make us who we are instead of some other person –…
The sex designation of your brain and body may not be as black and white as scientists have believed it to be. Instead gender may fall somewhere on a gray scale. Scientists are trying to unravel the complex biological breakdowns of gender, and as they learn more, it’s becoming more apparent there aren’t just men and women among us. In…
A powerful genome editing tool may soon become even more powerful. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have unlocked the key to how bacteria are able to “steal” genetic information from viruses and other foreign invaders for use in their own immunological memory system. “We’ve shown that bacteria need only two proteins to facilitate this process, Cas1…
Last week, researchers expanded the size of the mouse brain by giving rodents a piece of human DNA. Now another team has topped that feat, pinpointing a human gene that not only grows the mouse brain but also gives it the distinctive folds found in primate brains. The work suggests that scientists are finally beginning to unravel some of the…
British lawmakers in the House of Commons voted Tuesday to allow scientists to create babies from the DNA of three people — a move that could prevent some children from inheriting potentially fatal diseases from their mothers. The vote in the House of Commons was 382-128 in favor. The bill must next be approved by the House of Lords before…