ISG professor, Soraya de Chadarevian, recently co-edited “Heredity and The Study of Human Populations After 1945” in the Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Abstract: The essays in this issue look at the contested history of human heredity after 1945 from a new analytical angle, that of populations…
ISG professor, Soraya de Chadarevian, recently published “Chromosome Surveys of Human Populations: Between Epidemiology and Anthropology” in the Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Abstract: It is commonly held that after 1945 human genetics turned medical and focussed on the individual rather than on the study of human…
A growing body of evidence suggests that environmental stresses can cause changes in gene expression that are transmitted from parents to their offspring, making “epigenetics” a hot topic. Epigenetic modifications do not affect the DNA sequence of genes, but change how the DNA is packaged and how genes are expressed. Now, a study by scientists at UC Santa Cruz shows…
War—what is it good for? “Absolutely nothing” according to the refrain of a 1970 hit song. Many humans would agree with this sentiment. But a major new study of warfare in chimpanzees finds that lethal aggression can be evolutionarily beneficial in that species, rewarding the winners with food, mates, and the opportunity to pass along their genes. The findings run…
The age of the Anthropocene–the scientific name given to our current geologic age–is dominated by human impacts on our environment. A warming climate. Increased resistance of pathogens and pests. A swelling population. Coping with these modern global challenges requires application of what one might call a more-ancient principle: evolution. That’s the recommendation of a diverse group of researchers, in a…
By comparing the genomes of malaria parasites that affect chimpanzees and those that affect humans, researchers discovered that it is the difference in the parasites’ surface proteins that determine which host it will infect. Out of a genome of approximately 5,500 genes, researchers found that most genes have directly equivalent counterparts between the human and primate parasites. However, portions of…