Emma Kowal, Deakin University e Misty Jenkins, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
The SBS documentary DNA Nation tracks three people on their ‘individual genetic journey’. But for Indigenous Australians in particular, genetic testing is a can of worms - politically, ethically and technically.
People get suspicious when ethically fraught science is discussed behind closed doors.
DNA image via www.shutterstock.com.
Humans evolved in Africa, spread across the world, and then it gets messy. Luckily advances in genetic sequencing have helped us track the complex history of human migration.
A DNA string. The genomic revolution is upon us.
Shutterstock
The 1000 Genome Project has revealed the genetic variations that exist among people around the world, and discovered that some people are missing many genes.
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…
Harking back to the diet of the caveman.
Flickr/George
We still hear and read a lot about how a diet based on what our Stone Age ancestors ate may be a cure-all for modern ills. But can we really run the clock backwards and find the optimal way to eat? It’s…
The human Y chromosome has retained only 3% of its ancestral genes. So why’s it a shadow of its former self?
Rafael Anderson Gonzales Mendoza/Flickr
The Y chromosome, that little chain of genes that determines the sex of humans, is not as tough as you might think. In fact, if we look at the Y chromosome over the course of our evolution we’ve seen it…
Research into gene regulation can treat illness, grow food and understand the brain.
WildBear
The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science – awarded at Parliament House in Canberra tonight – recognise excellence in science and science teaching. This year, we asked four prizewinners to reflect on their…
There’s no one universal ‘intelligence gene’ but many thousands each contributing a small increment – and here are three.
Andrew Huff/Flickr (cropped)
Intelligence, cognitive ability or cognitive performance is usually measured by a battery of tests that aim to quantify skills such as memory and analytical ability. There is loads of variation between…
It don’t matter if you’re black or white (or yellow, or beige, or brown).
Suedehead/Flickr
The issue of race has been in the news a lot lately with the canning of proposed amendments to Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act, attempts by extremists to commit genocide on cultural minorities in…
Rather than there being a single ‘gay gene’, there may be many which contribute to sexual preference.
Sasha Kargaltsev/Flickr
The claim that homosexual men share a “gay gene” created a furore in the 1990s. But new research two decades on supports this claim – and adds another candidate gene. To an evolutionary geneticist, the…
Naia, which means water nymph in Greek, in her watery grave.
Daniel Riordan Araujo
The discovery of a nearly complete fossil skeleton of a teenage girl in the Hoyo Negro submerged cave system in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula provides new insight into the first people to inhabit the Americas…
Imagine your DNA as strands of fairy lights – and if a globe blew, you could remove it and pop in another.
kyz/Flickr
Mistakes in the paper version of the Encyclopædia Britannica took a long time to correct – years often passed between revised editions – but these days editing information is much easier. In electronic…
All scientific evidence points to the fact that, if you go far enough back, all life on Earth is related through common ancestry. Turns out that applying the same sort of analysis shows that all humans…