A paper in Cell is reporting the sequence of a Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA genome. Mitochondrial DNA, which you inherit only from your mother, has long been among the most useful DNA regions for…

Part 1 on The Plausibility of Life Darwin is famous for convincingly arguing that natural selection can explain why living things have features that are well-matched to the environment they live in.…

Sleep is regulated by two processes: circadian and homeostatic. Circadian regulation affects the timing of sleep, and the homeostatic mechanism affects the need for sleep. While scientists and…

The white horse has been an icon for dignity, purity and good guys across various human cultures all over the world but only now has an international team been able to identify the mutation that…

“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life you need to make an ugly woman your wife,” or “if your rent is late and you might have to litigate, don’t worry, be happy,” are a few of the ways…

Common genetic variations affecting nicotine receptors in the nervous system can significantly increase the chance that European Americans who begin smoking by age 17 will struggle with lifelong…

One of the many aggravations I encounter when reviewing manuscripts is that some authors greatly overstate the applicability of statistically significant patterns they report. For example, a…

Epigenetic mechanisms are at the heart of developmental biology, orchestrating the formation of many different tissues and organs from a fertilised egg. Almost all cells in an individual have…

In general, domesticated food plants have larger fruits, heads of grain, tubers, etc, because this is one of the characteristics that early hunter-gatherers chose when foraging for food and later…

What makes a pointer point, a sheep dog herd, and a retriever retrieve? Why do Yorkshire terriers live longer than Great Danes? And how can a tiny Chihuahua possibly be related to a Great Dane? Dogs…