Recently in ISG

Small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, with enormous eyes and an appetite for meat, tarsiers are an anomaly of nature. They are also our distant cousins, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who recently sequenced and analyzed the tarsier genome. The findings, published…

Three ISG “alums,” Laura Foster, Ruha Benjamin, and Lindsay Smith,  have published papers in the most recent issue of Science, Technology & Human Values, in a special issue entitled “Resisting Power, Retooling Justice: Promises of Postcolonial Technosciences. See the full issue here: Special Issue: Resisting Power, Retooling Justice: Promises of Feminist Postcolonial…

Remnants of extinct monkeys are hiding inside you, along with those of lizards, jellyfish and other animals. Your DNA is built upon gene fragments from primal ancestors. Now researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have made it more likely that ancestral genes, along with ancestral proteins, can be confidently identified and…

An international team of researchers has sequenced a strain of the Zika virus that will be used as a World Health Organization (WHO) reference strain to identify Zika virus infection in the blood, thus making it easier to diagnose the disease. While the reference material will undergo formal WHO review in October,…

There’s no need to reinvent the genetic wheel. That’s one lesson of a new study that looks to the saliva of humans, gorillas, orangutans, macaques and African green monkeys for insights into evolution. The research, published on Aug. 25 in Scientific Reports, examined a gene called MUC7 that tells the body how…

Scientists say they are closer to pinning down the genetic causes of inherited diseases ranging from muscular dystrophy to certain types of heart disease after analysing the DNA of more than 60,000 people. Researchers have discovered more than 3,000 genes in which certain mutations are likely to play a role in disease,…

Female fish have a novel way of finding Mr Right when it comes to picking fathers for their offspring, scientists have revealed. Like most other species of fish, female ocellated wrasse release their eggs into the water for fertilization by males, making just who ends up as the daddy something of a…

Scientists from Oxford University and UCL have identified part of our brain that helps us learn to be good to others. The discovery could help understanding of conditions like psychopathy where people’s behaviour is extremely antisocial. The researchers were led by Dr Patricia Lockwood, who explained: ‘Prosocial behaviours are social behaviours that…

Expectations are soaring for 25-year-old South African runner Caster Semenya, who races next week in the 800 meters. She’s favored to clinch a gold medal. She might even shatter the longest-running world record for track and field. And if she does, it could affect much more than the pride of her competitors….

A genetic mutation may have helped modern humans adapt to smoke exposure from fires and perhaps sparked an evolutionary advantage over their archaic competitors, including Neandertals, according to a team of researchers. Modern humans are the only primates that carry this genetic mutation that potentially increased tolerance to toxic materials produced by…

ISG faculty, Patrick Allard, and two Human Biology & Society students, among others, have published a paper entitled “Exposure to the BPA-Substitute Bisphenol S Causes Unique Alterations of Germline Function,” with PLOS Genetics, 2016. ABSTRACT: Concerns about the safety of Bisphenol A, a chemical found in plastics, receipts, food packaging and more,…

Scientists from the University of British Columbia have shown that there is a genetic basis to the migratory routes flown by songbirds, and have narrowed in on a relatively small cluster of genes that may govern the behaviour. “It’s amazing that the routes and timing of such complex behaviour could be genetically…