We live in the age of the genome. Hardly a week goes by without a story about how genes influence our health or behaviour. There has been recent excitement around new advances in the genetics of schizophrenia…
Personalised medicine is the ability to tailor therapy to an individual patient so that, as it’s often put, the right treatment is given to the right patient at the right time. But just how personal is…
Beauty, it is said, is in the eye of the beholder. And yet, there are many faces that a majority would find beautiful, say, George Clooney’s or Audrey Hepburn’s. Psychologists interested in mate selection…
There are lots of medicines available to help with the symptoms of schizophrenia. Some are a bit more effective than others. Some have side effects that make them better suited to particular patients…
A new drug for malaria could be developed after a way has been found to kill the parasite that causes the disease. Malaria remains one of the world’s top three single-cause infectious diseases and is caused…
Don Newgreen, Murdoch Children's Research Institute et Jeffrey Craig, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Take a look at several domesticated mammal species and you might spot a number of similarities between them, including those cute floppy ears. The famous naturalist and evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin…
I disliked and feared maths for most of my school career and dropped it as soon as I possibly could. My mother recalls me crying as a five-year-old because: “I can’t do the people-on-the-bus sums”. If…
A new study of the DNA of Tibetans has looked at the gene underlying their ability to live in the low-oxygen conditions at high altitudes. It found that this gene has come from an unexpected source – the…
Once the most numerous bird species in North America, passenger pigeons went from numbering in the billions to being extinct in less than a century. Their decline has been mostly blamed on intensive hunting…
Every year malaria kills more than 600,000, which is a little less than the population of Bhutan. There are some simple solutions to control the disease, but keeping the numbers of mosquitoes with malarial…
This weekend we could see history made. The US Triple Crown of thoroughbred horse racing hasn’t been won since 1978. This spring, the racehorse California Chrome won the first two legs of the Triple Crown…
Welcome to Biology and Blame, a series of articles examining historical and current influences on the notion of criminal responsibility. Today, Arlie Loughnan considers the challenge to the legal system…
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…
Australia is to play a significant role in the quest for artificial life as it joins an international project to create the world’s first synthetic yeast, we can announce today. Under the leadership of…
Hugo and Ross Turner are a pair of intrepid twins currently on an expedition to Greenland. One of them, Ross, is using the same style of equipment and facilities used by Ernest Shackleton 100 years ago…
Each year, thousands of Australians are diagnosed with an inherited condition that affects their nervous system. Neurogenetic disease is an umbrella term to describe these conditions, which are primarily…
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