A newly designed computational method has proven its usefulness in counting copies of duplicated genome sequences and in doing initial assessments of their contents, according to a study to be published Aug. 30 in Nature Genetics. The number of copies of particular DNA segments can differ from one person to the next.
People’s early-life experience sticks with them into adulthood and may render them more susceptible to many of the chronic diseases of aging, according to a new UBC study.
A team led by UBC researchers Gregory Miller and Michael Kobor performed genome-wide profiling in 103 healthy adults aged 25-40 years.
WASHINGTON — Evidence exists that people who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina between the 1950s and 1985 were exposed to the industrial solvents tricholorethylene (TCE) or perchloroethylene (PCE) in their water supply, but strong scientific evidence is not available to determine whether health problems among those exposed are due to the contaminants, says a new rep
Coral reefs throughout the Caribbean have been comprehensively ‘flattened’ over the last 40 years, according to a disturbing new study by the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The collapse of reef structure has serious implications for biodiversity and coastal defences — a double whammy for fragile coastal communities in the region.
The life expectancy for patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has increased by more than 13 years since the late 1990s thanks to advancements in antiretroviral therapy, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The first study to determine the global threat status of 21 species of wide-ranging oceanic pelagic sharks and rays reveals serious overfishing and recommends key steps that governments can take to safeguard populations.
Several genes with strong associations to schizophrenia have evolved rapidly due to selection during human evolution, according to new research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
A study from the February issue of the American Naturalist is the first to demonstrate that male fish are more likely to eat their offspring when they have been cuckolded during the act of spawning. Moreover, the more males that are present during spawning, the more likely it is that a male will try to eat the eggs when they are laid, as it is less likely that he fertilized them.
Scientists have described the first hypothesis grounded in evolutionary genomics explaining the development of autism. In a new articlethey explore the ‘imprinted brain hypothesis’ to explain the cause and effect of autism and autistic syndromes such as Asperger’s syndrome, highlighted by the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which involves selective disruption of social behaviour that makes individuals more self-focussed whilst enhancing skills related to mechanistic cognition.
Whether it’s monkeys and AIDS or mosquitoes and the West Nile Virus, we’re used to thinking of wildlife as reservoirs for emerging infectious human diseases. But a Canadian mathematical biologist says that it’s time that we turned the tables – as often as not, it’s humans that are making the wildlife sick, often to our own detriment.
A recent discovery unveils the chemical secret that gives old bees the authority to keep young bees home babysitting instead of going out on the town. A hard-to-detect pheromone explains a phenomenon Michigan State University entomologist Zachary Huang published 12 years ago — that somehow older forager bees exert influence over the younger nurse bees in a hive, keeping them grounded until they are more mature, and thus more ready to handle the demands of buzzing about.
Putting on airs doesn’t cut it in the wasp world. When wasps sporting the high-quality symbol of a blotchy face turned out to be wimps, they got harassed more than wasps whose abilities were honestly reflected by their faces, report researchers. It’s the first conclusive report that animals that don’t signal their qualities honestly receive social sanctions. Moreover, it’s the first report of such quality signals in insects.