Through genetic detective work, scientists have identified missing links in the tomato’s evolution from a wild blueberry-sized fruit in South America to the larger modern tomato of today.
Should Australia allow the creation of babies with DNA from more than two people? This reproductive technology could prevent babies being born with mitochondrial disease, so the simple answer is yes.
What happened to make plague able to cause devastating epidemics, as in this depiction from 1349?
Pierart dou Tielt/Wikimedia
People caught and died from plague long before it caused major epidemics like the Black Death in the middle ages. Could what scientists call cultural resistance be what kept the disease under control?
A study claims the first humans lived in a wetland around what is now northern Botswana.
Prill/Shutterstock
How many genes do you really need? Are there any that we can lose? Researchers are now identifying species that have streamlined their genome to adapt to a particular lifestyle.
Miners working at Bersham Colliery near Wrexham in Wales, 1960.
The National Archives UK/Flickr
People who moved away from Britain’s coal-mining areas have genetic profiles linked to higher educational attainment and better health than those who stayed.
CRISPR technology is continually improving to make it more specific, but serious consideration should be given to when and how CRISPR is safe for gene editing.
Having a hallucination or delusion doesn’t necessarily mean you have a mental health condition, such as schizophrenia.
Tero Vesalainen/ Shutterstock
While the other members of the Sirenia are found in the Atlantic, the dugong is the only sea cow found in the Indian Ocean and south-western Pacific. This highlights its deep African connections.
Bill Maher suggests that fat-shaming may help people lose weight.
Randy Miramontez/Shutterstock.com
Fat-shaming is as ineffective as it is cruel. The bullying tactic also ignores the biological factors underlying obesity, which are not always under a person’s control.
Identical twins look the same, are the same sex, share the same birthday and shares the same genes.
www.shuttershock.com
Interestingly, there are more non-identical twins in Australia now than there have been before. The number of twin pregnancies has grown over the past 30 years.
A thought experiment from Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene turned out to be a more realistic explanation for altruism than he expected.
More than 200 gene variants have been linked to outstanding sporting performance and this number could increase as we continue to research the link between genetics and athlete performance.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Genetic testing could help us build targeted and effective training routines for athletes, but the emerging science could also introduce opportunity for discrimination in the sporting world.
The biology of same-sex attraction seems to involve a host of genes.
Dewald Kirsten/Shutterstock
The largest study of its kind - comparing the genetic sequences of almost half a million people - has revealed many different parts of our genetic code that seem to influence same-sex sexual behaviour.
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford