Tag Archives: genetics
Economic Factors, Not Genetics, May Lead To Obesity
Researchers at Virginia Tech recently found that the cost of food, not an individual’s genetics, is a major cause for consuming fattening food. This indicates that environmental factors may be to blame for America’s obesity problem. Said a professor associated with the study, “People may think that if they are genetically geared toward being obese that they may not be … [ Read more ]
Can Creativity Foreshadow Mental Illness?
Creativity is frequently paired with mental illness, according to a new study that confirms the stereotype that people in creative professions are significantly more susceptible to psychiatric disorders than the general population. Previous studies also found that creativity was significantly linked to mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder. Other researchers found that people who suffer bipolar disorder tend to be more creative … [ Read more ]
Early Life Adversity Affects Brain DNA In Both Rodents And Humans
Early life experience results in a broad change in the way our DNA is “epigenetically” chemically marked in the brain by a coat of small chemicals called methyl groups, according to researchers at McGill University. A group of researchers and scientists at the Douglas Institute have discovered a remarkable similarity in the way the DNA in human brains and the … [ Read more ]
Redhead Genetics Linked To Evolution, But Extinction?
Happy Roodharigendag (that’s Redhead Day in Dutch). It’s a summer festival that takes place the first weekend in September in the Netherlands. This year, nearly 5,000 people gathered to celebrate all things fiery red, especially this unique phenotype. But what exactly is the genetic story behind red hair? How do redheads get that auburn tone? And does their rumored extinction … [ Read more ]
New ‘Barcode’ Blood Test Developed For Aggressive Prostate Cancer
Scientists have designed a blood test that reads genetic changes like a barcode – and can pick out aggressive prostate cancers by their particular pattern of gene activity. A team found reading the pattern of genes switched on and off in blood cells could accurately detect which advanced prostate cancers had the worst survival. And the researchers believe the blood … [ Read more ]
Human-Neandertal Mating Gets A New Date
Cross-species mating occurred when Stone Age humans left Africa and encountered Neandertals, or possibly a close Neandertal relative, upon reaching the Middle East and Europe in the latter part of the Stone Age, says a team led by geneticist Sriram Sankararaman of Harvard Medical School. Scientistis measured the lengths of DNA segments shared by Neandertals and present-day Europeans. Interbreeding might … [ Read more ]
Nobel Prize For Medicine Goes To British And Japanese Scientists For Stem Cell Research
Two researchers, John B. Gurdon, 79, from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka, 50, from Japan have won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their contribution to the field of stem cell research. ”These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation,” said a press release from The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet. The scientists will … [ Read more ]
New Discovery Proves Early Humans Needed Meat To Survive
A two-inch skull fragment of a 1.5 million-year-old child, discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, shows signs of nutritional deficiencies commonly caused by a lack of meat in its owner’s diet. This discovery has lead scientists to believe that “meat eating is associated with brain development.” Past studies have suggested that early humans ate meat, but researchers were … [ Read more ]
Genes May Be Linked To Women’s Desire To Be Thin
Many factors have been blamed for women’s desire to be thin: Barbie dolls, models in magazines, cultural expectations at large. Once researchers determined the participants’ level of thin idealization, they compared identical twins, which share 100% of their genes, and fraternal twins, which share 50%. They also asked about shared and non-shared environmental factors. The study found that identical twins … [ Read more ]
Hard To Link Specific Genes To IQ
Psychologists have long known that intelligence, like most other traits, is partly genetic. A Harvard economist led an international team of researchers who analyzed a dozen genes using large data sets that included both intelligence testing and genetic data. In nearly every case, the researchers found that intelligence could not be linked to the specific genes that were tested. Scientists … [ Read more ]
