Genetics
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AnimalsSurprise! Sixteen tiny wasp species found masquerading as one
Scientists used new and old tools to overturn 160-year-old ideas about this wasp. They show you can’t tell a wasp by its looks.
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Health & MedicineSickle-cell gene therapies offer hope — and challenges
Doctor Erica Esrick discusses existing treatments and an ongoing clinical trial for a gene therapy to treat sickle cell disease.
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Health & MedicineExplainer: What is sickle cell disease?
Gene mutations can alter an individual’s hemoglobin in ways that curl their blood cells. This can cause painful sickle cell disease.
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GeneticsDNA in air can help ID unseen animals nearby
Analyzing these genetic residues in air offers a new way to study animals. It could give scientists a chance to monitor rare or hard to find animals.
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AnimalsMeat-eating bees have something in common with vultures
Flesh-eating bees have acid-producing gut bacteria, much as vultures do. It lets them safely snack on rotting meat.
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HumansGenetics show humans likely trace back to Africa
Our history began looking ever more complex once geneticists revealed our ancestors picked up new DNA as they traveled across time and continents.
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GeneticsExplainer: What is RNA?
A partner to DNA, cells use this molecule to translate the instructions for making all of the many proteins that your body needs to function.
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AnimalsWill the woolly mammoth return?
Scientists are using genetic engineering and cloning to try to bring back extinct species or save endangered ones. Here’s how and why.
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AnimalsCloning boosts endangered black-footed ferrets
A cloned ferret named Elizabeth Ann brings genetic diversity to a species that nearly went extinct in the 1980s.
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MicrobesExplainer: Virus variants and strains
When viruses become more infectious or better able to survive the body’s immune system, they become a type of variant known as a strain.
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PlantsHow Romanesco cauliflower grows spiraling fractal cones
By tweaking just three genes in a common lab plant, scientists have mimicked one of nature’s most impressive mathematical patterns.
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GeneticsJust a tiny share of the DNA in us is unique to humans
Some of these tweaks to DNA, however, may have played a role in brain evolution.