Scientists have discovered the genetic “switch” that causes many animals, including fish, frogs and humans, to look the same at a certain point in embryonic development.
The study of human intelligence dates back well over 100 years. And the core disagreement between researchers and theorists is whether differences are genetic or largely influenced by the environment.
Family resemblance isn’t only down to genes, but also to the influence of the environment on those genes.
Mitchell Joyce/Flickr
Jeffrey Craig, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Epigenetics is increasingly used as a buzzword to sell pseudoscientific products, but the truth of epigenetics is even more interesting – and complex – than the quacks claim.
The enzyme, DNA methyltransferase (DNMT), in action in the animation, Tagging DNA.
Kate Patterson
It takes a careful balance between art and science to illustrate the processes that take place within our cells and explain the complexities of epigenetics.
Epigenetic molecules play a different melody on different people’s genomes, and this might be contributing to some developing autism.
Jesse Kruger/Flickr
Jeffrey Craig, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Anthony Hannan, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health e Yuk Jing Loke, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
The epigenetic ‘musicians’ that play our genomes in different ways might help us understand the causes of autism.
Will Russian science return to the bad old days of Stalin?
Reuters photographer
Loren Graham, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Some Russians are looking back admiringly to a tyrannical scientist from Stalinist times – and using the new field of epigenetics to bolster their case.
Genetic therapy might be able to reverse the harmful effects of sickle cell anaemia.
Keith Chambers
Gene therapy is allowing us to switch on natural beneficial mutations to counteract the effects of negative mutations in diseases such as sickle cell anaemia.
Could genetics be a legal get-out clause?
science photo/www.shutterstock.com
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.
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.
A mother’s healthy and varied diet during pregnancy might give her child a head start to healthy eating.
Bettina Neuefeind/Flickr
Our parents teach us what is to eat. But this process begins well before the fight to get toddlers to eat their veggies. Not only do our parents give us the genes that define our taste receptors, research…
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…