How teeth became tusks, and tusks became liabilities
“The persistence of elephant poaching has prompted researchers to wonder whether elephants really needed their tusks, and whether they might not be better off if the tuskless trait were to…
News
New Guide For Finding Genes Linked With Behavior
Scientists interested in finding specific genes that influence the behavior of humans and animals have a new tool, thanks to a two-year research effort aimed at describing how to apply…
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,…
Flower Or Flesh? Genetics Explain Mosquito Preference
Imagine a world in which mosquitoes choose blossoms over blood. Nice, right? There already exists a mosquito species called Wyeomyia smithii in which most of the bugs refuse blood meals in favor of sweet…
DNA Reveals That Silky Anteaters Are Seven Species
The silky anteater (Cyclopes didactylus) has previously been recognized to be a single species divided into several sub-species. But a new genetic analysis, published in the Zoological Journal of the…
Google Has Released an AI Tool That Makes Sense of Your Genome
Almost 15 years after scientists first sequenced the human genome, making sense of the enormous amount of data that encodes human life remains a formidable challenge. But it is also…