Knowing an animal's normal lifespan is hugely important for conservation efforts, but it's harder to find out than you'd think.

A new computational approach to analyzing gene expression data is presented by computational biologists from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and published in Cell Systems on November 27.

Natural genetic engineering allowed plants to move from water to land, according to a new study by an international group of scientists from Canada, China, France, Germany and Russia. “This is one of the most important events in the evolution of life on this planet—without which we as a species would not exist,” said University of Alberta genomicist and study co-investigator Gane Ka-Shu Wong.

Method that generated drug leads may be flawed

In a milestone for synthetic biology, colonies of E. coli thrive with DNA constructed from scratch by humans, not nature.

There's an invader in their DNA.

A study that raised questions over the future health of the world’s first gene-edited babies has been retracted because of key errors that undermined its conclusion.

Andrew Anzalone was restless. It was late fall of 2017. The year was winding down, and so was his MD/PhD program at Columbia. Trying to figure out what was next in his life, he’d taken to long walks in the leaf-strewn West Village. One night as he paced up Hudson Street, his stomach filled with La Colombe coffee and his mind with Crispr gene editing papers, an idea began to bubble through the caffeine brume inside his brain.

The genealogist’s dream of testing old, spit-laced artifacts is coming true—but raising questions about who controls dead people’s DNA.

Ernest Hemingway prized sleep for good reason. Not one to dwell on rest and recuperation, the novelist saw snoozing as a form of damage limitation. “I love sleep,” he once said. “My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake.” The author’s observation might be truer than he imagined. In a new study, scientists found that broken DNA builds up in brain cells in the daytime, and that repair work only reverses the damage during sleep.

With an analysis of DNA from nearly 300 fossilized remains, scientists are peering into human prehistory in the region.

A new Northwestern University study challenges prevailing understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at conception. Previous research has shown that socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful determinant of human health and disease, and social inequality is a ubiquitous stressor for human populations globally.

A popular DNA-testing company seems to be targeting true crime fans with a new pitch to let them share their genetic information with law enforcement so cops can catch violent criminals.

In 1864, our understanding of what it means to be human changed when Neanderthals were identified as a distinct species of hominin. At the time, it was immensely scandalous to presume Homo sapiens weren’t uniquely human; now it’s obvious that we are one of many. On Thursday, scientists report in Cell that it may be time to add another member to our list of ancient kin.

A Cornell researcher, who is a leader in developing a new type of gene editing CRISPR system, and colleagues have used the new method for the first time in human cells – a major advance in the field. The new system, called CRISPR-Cas3, can efficiently erase long stretches of DNA from a targeted site in the human genome, a capability not easily attainable in more traditional CRISPR-Cas9 systems. Though robust applications may be well in the future, the new system has the potential to seek out and erase such ectopic viruses as herpes simplex, Epstein-Barr, and hepatitis B, each of which is a major threat to public health.

Ancestors of the people who built Stonehenge travelled west across the Mediterranean to get to Britain.

There are, undoubtedly, many factors that go into a person’s weight. A new report from the lab of Sekar Kathiresan, M.D., director of the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, documents a clear biologic basis for the predisposition of obesity. More specifically, that genetics play a role in how heavy a person gets.

DNA testing is a booming global business enabled by the internet. Millions of people have sent samples of their saliva to commercial labs in hopes of learning something new about their personal health or heritage, primarily in the United States and Europe. In some places, commercial tests are banned.

The death of six of the 11 Rhesus monkeys has once again raised some familiar ethical questions. (Photo : Pixabay on Pexels) A month ago, scientists from the Chinese Kunming Institute of Zoology in China were successful in implanting MCPH1 or Microcephalin into the existing genes of 11 rhesus monkeys.

It may one day be possible to reverse abnormal embryonic brain development linked to Down syndrome (DS) and improve cognitive function by therapeutically targeting a key gene known as OLIG2 prenatally, suggests newly published findings. The study published in Cell Stem Cell sought to understand the mechanisms underlying imbalances in excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission that may be responsible for cognitive defects in DS patients.