Crispr Wants to Feed the World
Ten years after its discovery, the implications of Crispr genome editing are profound and far-reaching, and we are only getting started. This tool, adapted from a bacterial immune system, allows…
What Germany’s Lack of Race Data Means During a Pandemic
“What do you think the rate of Covid-19 is for us?” This is the question that many Black people living in Berlin asked me at the beginning of March 2020.…
Struggle to Move to a Musical Beat? Your Genes Could Be to Blame
If you struggle to pick up the beat of a song or mere tapping to the music in sync gets difficult for you, then it might not entirely be your…
Quashing Racist Pseudoscience Is Science’s Responsibility
Though these two classes (the mainstream and the fringe) are very different, each contributes to the public confusion that directly or indirectly feeds the racist pseudoscience machine. For example, though…
What If Fans Could Gather and Sequence Athletes’ DNA?
It’s worth pointing out that the link between a person’s DNA and their athletic achievements is very hard to pin down. There’s very little evidence that you can predict specific…
4 Dead Infants, a Convicted Mother, and a Genetic Mystery
That evening she wrote an email to Folbigg’s lawyer and said she was in. As she dug into the investigation, she assumed that her scientific work would help guide the…
‘Y: The Last Man’ Isn’t About Politics—It’s About Survival
At its core, Y: The Last Man is about surviving trauma. Set in a society trying to rebuild itself after a mysterious plague killed every mammal with a Y chromosome…
What Does Big Data Have to Do With Wildlife Conservation?
A species goes extinct when there are none of its kind left. In other words, extinction is about small numbers, so how does big data help us study extinction? Luckily…
One Man’s Search for the DNA Data That Could Save His Life
That’s not to mention the exploding amount of new genetic information these tests are pumping out, which researchers are racing to interpret and make sense of. They’re encountering what are…
Australian labradoodle is more poodle than Labrador, according to DNA
By Jason Arunn Murugesu The Australian labradoodle’s DNA is mostly poodleThurtell/Getty Images Genetic analysis of the Australian labradoodle reveals that most of its genes come from the poodle, highlighting how…