The first case of genetically engineering a human embryo to cure a congenital disease is a technical breakthrough but raises troubling ethical questions.
A recent study showing that the potential for committing a sex crime may be written in our genes is interesting but unlikely to help prevent sex offenses.
Legend tells that huge hollow boabs were used as prisons in north west Australia.
Robyn Jay/Flickr
Genetics and linguistics show Aboriginal people spread iconic boab trees around north west Australia.
The discovery of the genes that influence the beak shape in the famous Galapagos finches highlight the underlying unity of all life.
Paul Krawczuk/Flickr
Darwin’s finches are known to be a paragon of evolution by natural selection, but a recent genetic discovery relating to their beaks highlights the evolutionary connectedness of all life.
Heard it on the (research) grapevine.
Naotake Murayama
These insects are so much more than just the scourge of fruit bowls everywhere. They’re a key model system for all kinds of research that teaches us about our own brain and body systems.
Jolie Pitt has announced she has had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to mitigate cancer risk.
EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga
Clare Scott, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
Jolie Pitt has announced more surgery, this time to mitigate her risk of developing ovarian cancer. But this should ideally not have the same “Jolie effect” as her last operation.
Feeling snubbed at the lack of invite?
Joe Giddens/PA Wire
Benedict Cumberbatch is related to him – as are many others. But very few helped us identify the car park king.
Map depicting the two major hypotheses of the spread of Indo-European languages (white arrows) and geographic distribution of the archaeological cultures described in the text.
Wolfgang Haak
Europe is famously tesselated, with different cultural and language groups clustering in different regions. But how did they all get there? And how are they related?
Yorkshire: not in the top five distinct areas.
Robert Lowe
Emperor penguins are adapted to the bitter cold of Antarctica, but a new study reveals that during the last ice age it got too cold even for them.
The Human Genome Project was just the beginning. The Epigenome Roadmap is now telling us how all these genes switch on and off in different parts of the body, and how they go wrong with disease.
Tom Purcell/Flickr
There’s still a lot we don’t know about how various genes are switched on and off. But a new project is seeking to shed light on the complex world of epigenetics.
Evolution is often perceived as being a “directional” or “adaptive” process. We often think of species evolving to become stronger or faster, or to have sharper teeth, for example. And we tend to see this…
The actions of cells underpin new thinking about pancreatic cancer, which took the life of Apple’s Steve Jobs.
James Mitchell
Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease. With a ten-year survival rate of just 1%, it has the poorest prognosis of all solid tumours. The main reason for this is that tumours of the pancreas largely…
The traditional picture of Vikings is one of boatloads of hairy men pillaging their way along the coasts of Europe. Though true to some degree, this stereotype has more recently been tempered with the…
How has domestication changed the humble house cat?
Moyan Brenn/Flickr
House cats are a great source of companionship for many people – 3 million cats are kept as pets in Australia. Now thanks to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science today…
Icy times for mom-to-be meant bad news for baby-on-board.
Shaun Best/Reuters
In January 1998 five days of freezing rain collapsed the electrical grid of the Canadian province of Québec. The storm left more than 3 million people without electricity for anywhere from a few hours…
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