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In a recent post I noted that genetic tests to predict adult height are still a long way off being accurate; currently, known genetic variants can predict just over 5% of the variance in height, as opposed to 40% predicted using a simple algorithm based on the heights of both parents. The genetic complexity of height means that trying to screen embryos for this trait using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is likely to be little more than an exercise in frustration. However, that's not true for all traits. In several recent posts I've mentioned eye colour as one relatively genetically simple...

Australians have been refused insurance protection because of their genetic make-up, researchers have shown in the first study in the world to provide proof of genetic discrimination

WASHINGTON – Ever wonder why sharks get several rows of teeth and people only get one? Some geneticists did, and their discovery could spur work to help adults one day grow new teeth when their own wear out. A single gene appears to be in charge, preventing additional tooth formation in species destined for a limited set. When the scientists bred mice...

Children differ, as any parent of two or more knows. Some babies sleep through the night, others are always awake; some are calm, others are fussy; some walk at an early age, others after a long wait. Scientists have proved that genes are responsible for these early differences. But people assume that as children get older and spend more time under their parents’ influence, the effect of genes declines. They are wrong. For a century or more, we have understood that intelligence is largely inherited, though even today some mistakenly rail against the idea and say that nurture, not nature,...

"Bad boys" have a bad boy gene. What's more, that same gene makes them more popular than the proverbial Mr. Nice Guy. Hello James Dean, so long Alan Alda

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A groundbreaking study of popularity by a Michigan State University scientist has found that genes elicit not only specific behaviors but also the social consequences of those behaviors.

It's not often that cultural and religious persecution makes countries more diverse, but the Spanish Inquisition might have done just that. One in five Spaniards and Portuguese has a Jewish ancestor, while a tenth of Iberians boast North African ancestors, finds new research. This melting pot probably occurred after centuries of coexistence and tolerance among Muslims, Jews and Christians ended in 1492, when Catholic monarchs converted or expelled the Islamic population, called Moriscos. Sephardic Jews, whose Iberian roots extend to the first century AD, received much the same treatment. "They were given a choice: convert, go, or die," says Mark...

MADRID (Reuters) – From the 15th century on, Spain's Jews were mostly expelled or forced to convert, but today some 20 percent of Spanish genes can be traced to Sephardic Jews, a study has found. A report in the American Journal of Human Genetics says almost a fifth of Spaniards' genes are of Sephardic Jewish origin and another 11 percent can be traced to North Africa. "The genetic composition of the current population is the legacy of our diverse cultural and religious past," one of the report's authors, Francesc Calafell, from the evolutionary biology faculty at Pompeu Fabra University in...

Berlin doctor has reportedly cured a leukemia patient of the deadly AIDS virus, German daily Die Welt reported on Wednesday. For two years now, Dr. Gero Hütter has found no trace of the virus in the 42-year-old American living Berlin, whom he has treated for leukemia at the city’s Charité hospital. The man is AIDS-free despite the fact that he stopped taking his medication for AIDS after the treatment, the paper reported, calling the development a “sensation.”

Genetics, DNA - strong Proof of (almost all) Jews' roots to the land of Israel, not so for Arabs /"palestinians" [The "palestinian" Arabs as "cousins" MYTH]Jews and their neighbors: The Middle East With Jews looking increasingly like a relatively cohesive population largely of Middle Eastern origin, the logical next question is how close a genetic relationship exists with other Middle Eastern groups. A study of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs published in 2000 by Israeli researchers revealed what the authors described as "a relatively recent common ancestry." It was greeted with euphoric proclamations that Palestinians and Jews are "brothers." A...

Eight years ago, I published an article in these pages called "Wandering Jews—and Their Genes" (September 2000). At the time I was working on a book about a Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group in the northeast Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, many of whose members believe that they descend from the biblical tribe of Manasseh, and about a group of Judaizers among them known as the B'nei Menashe, over a thousand of whom live today in Israel as converts to Judaism. This led me to an interest in Jewish historical genetics, then a new discipline. Historical genetics itself was still a...

The same gene that affects a rodent's ability to mate for life may affect human marriages, Swedish and U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. Men carrying a common variation of gene involved in brain signaling were more likely to be in unhappy marriages than men with the other version, the team at the Karolinska Institute found. Although they are not sure what the genetic changes do to a man's behavior, some other research suggests it has to do with the ability to communicate and empathize, the team reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We never looked at...

Biologists have constructed a genetic map of Europe showing the degree of relatedness between its various populations. All the populations are quite similar, but the differences are sufficient that it should be possible to devise a forensic test to tell which country in Europe an individual probably comes from, said Manfred Kayser, a geneticist at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. The map shows, at right, the location in Europe where each of the sampled populations live and, at left, the genetic relationship between these 23 populations. The map was constructed by Dr. Kayser, Dr. Oscar Lao and...

When it comes to memory it is clear that men and women are simply not on the same wavelength. While men may fail to match a woman's ability to remember the date of an anniversary, they are better at storing a seemingly endless cache of facts and figures. Scientists believe they have now uncovered the reason for this difference between the sexes – they make the memories in different ways.

RESEARCHERS believe they have discovered two genes which allow people to hold their drink. Carriers of one or both genes can process alcohol through the body quickly. One effect is that it halves the chance of developing mouth, throat and oesophageal cancer.

We all know the story of Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist so caught up in his own research that he arrogantly tried to create new life and a new man. Today, if you look at people who study how genetics shape human behavior, you find a collection of anti-Frankensteins. As the research moves along, the scientists grow more modest about what we are close to knowing and achieving. It wasn’t long ago that headlines were blaring about the discovery of an aggression gene, a happiness gene or a depression gene. The implication was obvious: We’re beginning to understand the wellsprings of...

Three genes may play a strong role in determining why some young men raised in rough neighborhoods or deprived families become violent criminals, while others do not, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. One gene called MAOA that played an especially strong role has been shown in other studies to affect antisocial behavior -- and it was disturbingly common, the team at the University of North Carolina reported. People with a particular variation of the MAOA gene called 2R were very prone to criminal and delinquent behavior, said sociology professor Guang Guo, who led the study. "I don't want to say...

The Secret To Long Life May Not Be In The Genes ScienceDaily (May 6, 2008) — A research on the bone health of one of the oldest persons in the world, who recently died at the age of 114, reveals that there were no genetic modifications which could have contributed to this longevity. The research team, directed by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona professor Adolfo Díez Pérez, pointed out a healthy lifestyle, a Mediterranean diet, a temperate climate and regular physical activity as the reasons for his excellent health. The research team studied the bone mass and analysed the genetics of...

Technique Traces Origins Of Disease Genes In Mixed Human Populations ScienceDaily (Apr. 9, 2008) — A team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and the Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa has developed a technique to detect the ancestry of disease genes in hybrid, or mixed, human populations. The technique, called expected mutual information (EMI), determines how a set of DNA markers is likely to show the ancestral origin of locations on each chromosome. The team constructed an algorithm for the technique that selects panels of DNA markers that render the best picture of ancestral origin of...

If snakes strike terror in your toddler’s heart, he might still grow to be brave. A tendency toward fearfulness does have genetic underpinnings, but those shift several times as children become adults, a study has found. The worries of adolescents differ from those of young children — fear of the dark gives way to squeamishness about blood in a well-documented developmental progression. Now, psychiatrist Kenneth Kendler of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond and his colleagues have found that the genetic factors that leave a person prone to fear also shift during development. To tease apart the effect of...