human biology

‘It’s Not Science’: Experts Push Back Against Trump Health Department’s Sex Verification Plan

Written by Mary Emily O’Hara for intomore.com [Excerpt]: “In plain English, the federal government is proposing reclassifying transgender people’s legal sex back to the sex assigned at birth. And if that sex at birth was listed wrong or left unclear, the government wants to put people through genetic testing to ensure a sort of “gender purity,” as it were. The…

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Received An At-Home DNA Test As A Holiday Gift? Proceed With Caution

If you or a family member received a consumer genetic testing kit as a holiday gift, you probably weren’t alone. Sales of at-home DNA testing kits reportedly soared in 2017, as people sought clues to their ancestry or future health. Some genetic-testing companies encouraged the purchase of kits as holiday gifts — even offering free gift wrapping. However, the results from…

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Everything Your Biology Teacher Told You About Earlobes Is Wrong

Most of us learned in high school biology that genetics can sometimes be incredibly simple. Some physical traits are the result of an easy equation containing a pair of parents’ genes. One trait—blue eyes, for example—results from recessive genes, but only if no dominant gene—the one to thank for brown eyes—shows up to take a stand. Parents each pass on two…

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Twin Study Finds Genetics Affects Where Children Look, Shaping Mental Development

A new study co-led by Indiana University that tracked the eye movement of twins finds that genetics plays a strong role in how people attend to their environment. Conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the study offers a new angle on the emergence of differences between individuals and the integration of genetic and environmental factors in social,…

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New Model Reveals Possibility of Pumping Antibiotics Into Bacteria

Researchers in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Biochemistry have discovered that a cellular pump known to move drugs like antibiotics out of E. coli bacteria has the potential to bring them in as well, opening new lines of research into combating the bacteria. The discovery could rewrite almost 50 years of thinking about how these types of transporters function in the…

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