Researchers have reconstructed an ancient genome that is 10 times as old as any retrieved so far, and they now say that DNA should be recoverable from animals that lived one million years ago. This would greatly extend biologists’ ability to understand the evolutionary past. The genome was that of a horse that lived about 700,000 years ago in what…
ISG faculty Dr. Christopher Kelty co-edits the scholarly magazine, LIMN, devoted to outlining contemporary problems. For this issue, featuring ISG faculty Dr. Hannah Landecker, the topic is Sentinel Devices. Description: The polar ice cap rapidly recedes; colonies of honeybees collapse in alarming numbers; androgynous fish are detected in rivers and streams. These reports not only describe recent events, but also function as…
A genetic similarity between snail fossils found in Ireland and the Eastern Pyrenees suggests humans migrated from southern Europe to Ireland 8,000 years ago. As Britain emerged from the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, sea levels rose and landslides are thought to have triggered a great tsunami. Britain was transformed into an island, separated from…
In recent months, three international teams have published papers comparing the genomes of dogs and wolves. On some matters — such as the types of genetic changes that make the two differ — the researchers are more or less in agreement. Yet the teams have all arrived at wildly different conclusions about the timing, location and basis for the…
The study is published online and in the July print issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics. Senior author Dr. Jeffrey R. Gruen, professor of pediatrics, genetics, and investigative medicine at Yale, and colleagues analyzed data from more than 10,000 children born in 1991-1992 who were part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) conducted by investigators…
Until recently, the most extensive genome-wide association study in the social sciences involved about 10,000 individuals. A new study detailed in this week’s Scienceexamines the genomes of about 100,000 people across fifteen countries in order to identify genetic markers related to a person’s educational accomplishments. The researchers have identified genetic mutations that are associated with two measures of a person’s educational attainment:…