Mixed Messages on Rare Disease Drug
25 May 2012, 8:54 am
An FDA advisory panel said a study of Vyndaqel for familial amyloid polyneuropathy did not provide proof of its benefit, but that proof may not be necessary.

Outside View: Palestinian refugees forever?
25 May 2012, 6:44 am
By ALEXANDER JOFFE and ASAF ROMIROWSKY UPI Outside View Commentator WASHINGTON, May 25 (UPI) -- Suggested congressional changes to UNRWA and the Palestinians are long overdue and would improve the Palestinians’ ability to become self-reliant. It may also improve the chances for peace with Israel.

Why you vote the way you do
25 May 2012, 5:32 am
Genes play a role, says Jonathan Haidt, but your political outlook is also determined by six moral values

James A. Shapiro: Variation and Selection: What's the Difference? What Are the Issues?
17 May 2012, 10:14 pm
How could natural selection operate so that "the good ones spread in the population" if there were no positive variants in the first place? That is why I am confounded by Jerry Coyne's comment that he can explain natural genetic engineering by "garden variety natural selection."

Hearing and touch sensitivity may be genetically linked
14 May 2012, 1:30 am
London, May 14 (ANI): Sensitivity to touch is heritable and apparently linked to hearing as well, according to a new study.

Touch sensitivity is genetically linked to hearing
13 May 2012, 4:11 am
Impaired touch among deaf students indicates that some of the genes causing deafness may also dull finger sensitivity

What is life? Follow the bits
8 May 2012, 6:18 pm
Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: A pioneer on the frontier of biochemistry proposes a method to tell whether scientists are actually looking at a new form of life: Follow the bits.

Case closed: blonde Melanesians understood | Gene Expression
4 May 2012, 2:06 am
As a small child perusing old physical anthropology books I would occasionally stumble upon images of people of Oceanian stock with light hair color. I would wonder: is this a biological or cultural feature? In other words, were people bleaching their hair? If it was biological, was it heritable, or was it simply malnutrition? Another aspect of the phenotype was also straightforward: it did not ...

Epigenetic Cancer Pills Are Safe
1 May 2012, 1:14 pm
A brand new type of epigenetic cancer pill has been deemed safe for use in a Phase I trial according to Clinical Cancer Research. Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, which refers to functionally relevant modifications to the genome that do not involve a change in the ...

Higher maternal age predicts risk of autism
26 April 2012, 11:16 am
Maternal age is linked to autism, a new review of studies suggests. While much research has been done to identify potential genetic causes of autism, this analysis suggests that non-heritable and environmental factors may also play a role in children's risk for autism.