Gene Tweak Extends Life 500% (If You’re This Worm)
By tweaking a few key genes in the DNA of a roundworm, scientists have extended the animal’s life span by about 500%. That’s a huge jump in life: An average … Read more
genetics
Pig-Monkey Chimeras Created in China
Two piglets recently born in China look like average swine on the outside, but on the inside, they are (a very small) part monkey. A team of researchers generated the … Read more
Was Same Sex Behavior Hardwired Into Animals Since the Beginning?
Evolutionary scientists have been thinking about same-sex sexual behavior all wrong. That’s the implication of a new study on same-sex behavior in animals. Instead of asking why animals engage in … Read more
SCIENCE: It Turns Out Homosexuality is Complicated
No individual gene alone makes a person gay, lesbian or bisexual; instead, thousands of genes likely influence sexual orientation, a massive new study of the genomes of nearly half a … Read more
Will Superhumans Replace Us? Stephen Hawking Thought So
Are we all going to be replaced? Stephen Hawking apparently thought so. In the grand tradition of famous physicists making claims about subjects beyond their scope of expertise, the great … Read more
SCIENCE: Can We Revive an Ice-Age Horse?
A team of scientists in Siberia is hopeful that a mummified 40,000-year-old baby horse can provide critical genetic material for cloning the extinct ice-age species. But experts told Live Science … Read more
FOR WRITERS: Designer Babies
FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Aidee Ladnier: We’ve all heard the scare tactics of politicians warning of the dangers of designer babies, but genetically modified humans are … Read more
SCIENCE: Did Most Men Die Off 7,000 Years Ago?
Modern men’s genes suggest that something peculiar happened 5,000 to 7,000 years ago: Most of the male population across Asia, Europe and Africa seems to have died off, leaving behind … Read more
SCIENCE: 83 Genetic Mutations That Help Determine Your Height
Ever wonder how much of your height you inherited from your parents? A large-scale genetic study published recently in the journal Nature is helping shed some light on the factors … Read more
Science Trying to Answer Why People Are Trans
Why are girls born as girls, and boys as boys? What about an individual who is biologically female but feels or sees oneself as male, or the other way around? … Read more