Not all girls grow up to be mothers. Sometimes they choose not to be, and sometimes circumstances take those choices away. A superfluity of cancers and genetic diseases can destroy women’s ovaries. Or treatments like radiation—used to save a woman’s life—can render those egg-producing organs useless.
The new research revealed that if worms with the two genes mate with wild strains of Caenorhabditis elegans that don’t have both genes, their offspring who don’t inherit the antidote can’t protect themselves from the toxin — which is produced by mother worms — and die while they are still embryos.
Which came first, overall bigger brains or larger brain regions that control specialized behaviors? The study reports that though vertebrate brains differ in size, composition and abilities, evolution of overall brain size accounts for most of these differences, with larger brains leading to greater capabilities.
A landmark project to map the wiring of the human brain from womb to birth has released thousands of images that will help scientists unravel how conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy and attention deficit disorders arise in the brain.
Nomad Scythian herders roamed vast areas spanning the Central Asian steppes during the Iron Age, approximately from the 9th to the 1st century BCE. These livestock pastoralists, who lived on wagons covered by tents, left their mark in the history of warfare for their exceptional equestrian skills.
A study from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium provides the first molecular genetic evidence that genetic influences play a role in the risk of getting PTSD after trauma. The report showed that there is some shared genetic overlap between PTSD and other mental disorders such as schizophrenia.