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According to Guinness World Records, Gibson, a Great Dane, is the world's tallest dog, from floor to shoulder 42.2'. He stands 7'2' on his hind legs. Gibson plays with his friend, Zoie, a 7.5' Chihuahua in an undated photo. A single gene makes some poodles purse-sized while allowing a Great Dane to look a pony in the eye, U.S. scientists reported on Thursday in a finding that may shed light on human size differences and diseases. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/Handout/Reuters) A single gene makes some poodles purse-sized while allowing a Great Dane to look a pony in the eye, U.S. scientists...

Scientists have revealed details of the world's only known case of "semi-identical" twins. The journal Nature says the twins are identical on their mother's side, but share only half their genes on their father's side. They are the result of two sperm cells fertilising a single egg, which then divided to form two embryos - and each sperm contributed genes to each child. Each stage is unlikely, and scientists believe the twins are probably unique. These twins were born in the US, but neither their identity or their exact location is being revealed. Their case is also reported in the...

Source: University of California - Berkeley Date: March 11, 2007 Gene Transfer Between Species Is Surprisingly Common Science Daily — Bacteria are known to share genes, spreading drug resistance, for example. But how common is it in other organisms, including mammals like us? Two new studies show that most bacteria have genes or large groups of genes shared by other bacteria. Even among higher organisms, shared genes are the rule rather than the exception, UC Berkeley and LBNL researchers say. Two new studies by University of California, Berkeley, scientists highlight the amazing promiscuity of genes, which appear to shuttle frequently...

‘Tis a good day for the Irish -– and a really bad one for Basil Fawlty — thanks to my colleague Nicholas Wade’s article tracing the genetic heritage of the British Isles. I grew up listening to my Irish-American relatives bristle at the social pretensions of the Anglo-Saxons in England: “We were preserving civilization while they were painting themselves blue! Blue, I tell you!” Now we can point to research suggesting the Celts started civilization in those isles by introducing agriculture 6,000 years ago. We also have confirmation of our illustriously long lineages — next to us, the Angles and...

The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods. The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds. The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to health foods such as yogurt and granola bars. "We can really help children with...

German brother and sister are challenging the law against incest so that they can continue their relationship free from the threat of imprisonment. Patrick Stübing, an unemployed locksmith, and his sister Susan have had four children together since starting a sexual relationship in 2000. Three of the children are in foster care, and two have unspecified disabilities. The couple, who live near Leipzig, grew up separately and only met many years later. Their supporters say they will fight until incest is no longer regarded as a criminal offence, arguing that the law is out of date. They say it harks...

If you're particularly good with puzzles or chess, the reason may be in your genes. A team of scientists, led by psychiatric geneticists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has gathered the most extensive evidence to date that a gene that activates signaling pathways in the brain influences one kind of intelligence. They have confirmed a link between the gene, CHRM2, and performance IQ, which involves a person's ability to organize things logically. "This is not a gene FOR intelligence," says Danielle M. Dick, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author on the study. "It's a...

New research has identified the first genetic evidence of Africans having lived amongst "indigenous" British people for centuries. Their descendants, living across the UK today, were unaware of their black ancestry. The University of Leicester study, funded by the Wellcome Trust and published today in the journal European Journal of Human Genetics, found that one third of men with a rare Yorkshire surname carry a rare Y chromosome type previously found only amongst people of West African origin. The researchers, led by Professor Mark Jobling, of the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester, first spotted the rare Y...

People of African origin have lived in Britain for centuries, according to genetic evidence. A Leicester University study found that seven men with a rare Yorkshire surname carry a genetic signature previously found only in people of African origin. The men seem to have shared a common ancestor in the 18th Century, but the African DNA lineage they carry may have reached Britain centuries earlier. The connection was found to date back many generations Details of the study appear in the European Journal of Human Genetics. The scientists declined to disclose the men's surname in order to protect their...

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- The power to create "perfect" designer babies looms over the world of prenatal testing. But what if doctors started doing the opposite? Creating made-to-order babies with genetic defects would seem to be an ethical minefield, but to some parents with disabilities -- say, deafness or dwarfism -- it just means making babies like them. And a recent survey of U.S. clinics that offer embryo screening suggests it's already happening. Three percent, or four clinics surveyed, said they have provided the costly, complicated procedure to help families create children with a disability. Some doctors have denounced the...

A new discovery in stem cell research may mean big things for cancer patients in the future. Gary Van Zant, Ph.D., and a research team at the University of Kentucky published their findings today in Nature Genetics, an international scientific journal. The researchers genetically mapped a stem cell gene and its protein product, Laxetin, and building on that effort, carried the investigation all the way through to the identification of the gene itself. This is the first time such a complete study on a stem cell gene has been carried out. This particular gene is important because it helps regulate...

Don't pair up with matching genes 11:30 05 January 2007 NewScientist.com news service Matt Kaplan They say opposites attract – and a couple’s differences may be key to lasting happiness, according to a new genetic study of people in relationships. The findings were so predictive, that a DNA test could one day reveal how likely a woman is to cheat on her partner, the study suggests. Psychologist Christine Garver-Apgar at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, US, and colleagues investigated whether genetic similarities among romantically involved couples predicted how faithful and sexually responsive the partners were to one another....

07/26/04 -- Researchers have found a delivery method for gene therapy that reaches all the voluntary muscles of a mouse - including heart, diaphragm and limbs ? and reverses the process of muscle-wasting found in muscular dystrophy. "We have a clear 'proof of principle' that it is possible to deliver new genes body-wide to all the striated muscles of an adult animal. Finding a delivery method for the whole body has been a major obstacle limiting the development of gene therapy for the muscular dystrophies. Our new work identifies for the first time a method where a new dystrophin gene...

You are what your grandmother ate 22:00 13 November 2006 NewScientist.com news service Roxanne Khamsi The mice on the left-hand side have active AVY genes, giving them golden fur, while those on the right have silenced AVY genes (Image: Cropley et al/PNAS) A mother’s diet can change the behaviour of a specific gene for at least two subsequent generations, a new study demonstrates for the first time. Feeding mice an enriched diet during pregnancy silenced a gene for light fur in their pups. And even though these pups ate a standard, un-enriched diet, the gene remained less active in their...

When it comes to separating humans from other animals, researchers agree that it's what's between the ears that counts most. Indeed, changes in brain-related genes appear to explain the often vast differences between human and chimp cognition. Now scientists have discovered that the spaces between these genes can be just as important. Once thought of as junk, noncoding sequences of DNA fill in the gaps between genes and make up more than 90 percent of our genome. Recently, scientists have discovered that these stretches of DNA contain regulatory elements that control how and when nearby genes are turned on and...

Blue-eyed men prefer blue-eyed women, apparently because eye color can help reveal whether their partner has been faithful, researchers said on Monday. "Before you request a paternity test, spend a few minutes looking at your child's eye color," Bruno Laeng and colleagues at the University of Tromso in Norway said in the study. Under the laws of genetics, two parents with blue eyes will always have blue-eyed children, it said. So a blue-eyed man can know his blue-eyed wife or partner has cheated on him if their child has brown eyes. "Blue-eyed men may have unconsciously learned to value a...

This year’s Nobel prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded to two American researchers, Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello, for a far-reaching discovery about how genes are controlled within living cells. The discovery was made in 1998, only eight years ago. It has been recognized with unusual speed by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, which often lets decades elapse before awarding its accolade. The two scientists’ finding clarified a series of puzzling results obtained mostly by plant biologists trying to change the colors of petunias. By clarifying what was going on, they discovered a novel and quite...

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Americans Andrew Fire and Craig Mello won the 2006 Nobel prize for medicine on Monday for their discovery of how to switch off genes, a potential road to new treatments for diseases from AIDS to blindness and cancer. [...] Through experiments with worms, the two showed that a double strand of ribonucleic acid, or RNA, the genetic messenger of the cell, can "silence" targeted genes in a process known as RNA interference (RNAi). [...]

THE SAMURAI AND THE AINU Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu. Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of...

  PATENT OFFENDING In October 1976, an Alaska pipeline engineer named John Moore became seriously, mysteriously ill. Eventually, he found himself at the UCLA Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with a rare, progressive form of blood cancer called hairy cell leukemia.To slow the disease and perhaps save his life, Moore's physician - Dr. David Golde - recommended removing Moore's spleen. The surgery was successful. Moore recovered and eventually returned to Alaska, with instructions to visit Golde for annual checkups.  Over the next eight years, Moore did so. During each visit, Golde would extract samples of Moore's blood, skin,...