Roundworms are the most commonly used animal model to investigate aging and methods to increase the lifespan such as intermittent fasting. Latest research indicates that jumping genes could be another target for interventions aiming towards expanding the lifespan. What are jumping genes? Also called transposons, are movable stretches of DNA of possible viral origin that […]
Cell division, or mitosis, is a breathtaking choreography that showcases the grandeur of life. The primary objective of this process is to meticulously separate the two copies of the cell genome, presented in the form of chromatin, and allocate them between two daughter cells. Consequently, it holds paramount significance for the reproduction of unicellular organisms […]
So far, contraception has been practically exclusive to women. They are the ones not only responsible for the matter, but also the ones to suffer the brunt of the side effects of current contraceptive methods. Arrdc5, a new gene identified in mice, might hold the key to male contraception. This gene, common to several mammal […]
Author: Ramón Muñoz-Chápuli has been Professor of Animal Biology in the University of Málaga until his retirement. He has investigated for forty years in the fields of developmental biology and animal evolution. Hummingbirds are fascinating animals. They are the only birds able to true hovering and backward flight. This ability allows them to collect nectar […]
We, humans, have evolved pretty big brains compared to other mammals, and even compared to our primate cousins. Recent research seems to have found the reason for the higher number of neurons in our brains (about 86 billion). It appears that a single gene is responsible for our bigger brain. The Neanderthals are an extinct […]
Anthropology • Archaeology • Ethics • Genetics • History
About two-thirds of Jews today – or about 10 million people – are Ashkenazi, referring to a recent origin from Eastern and Central Europe. They reside mostly in the United States and Israel. Ashkenazi Jews carry a particularly high burden of disease-causing genetic mutations, such as those in the BRCA1 gene associated with an increased […]
How to breed more intelligent humans? This is a difficult question, one which raises numerous issues, both ethical and scientific. Would you give your eyesight away to become brighter? As crazy as this question may sound, a blinding mutation might increase intelligence. The CORD7 (cone-rod dystrophy 7) mutation of the RIMS1 gene produces progressive blindness […]
In the last years, CRISPR-Cas9 technology has revolutionized gene editing, having enormous research and clinical potential. However, gene editing can be tricky and have unexpected effects, like recently reported in the journal PNAS , where tweaking a gene produced aggressive hamsters instead of the calm, Zen animals the researchers were aiming for. Arginine-vasopressin (AVP) and […]
It is not an exaggeration to say that the question of where and when the Black Death, the deadliest pandemic ever, originated is one of the biggest mysteries in human history. After all, the Black Death was the first wave of the second plague pandemic of the 14th to early 19th centuries. It killed some […]
If you follow anything related to genetics, you’re probably thinking that it is old news, as the first draft was already published in 2000, but actually there were still missing parts. Now, thanks to new sequencing technologies, the human genome is completely sequenced. In the journal Science , six papers published back-to-back explain how this […]