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The discovery of a black market Chinese biolab operating in California, and the subsequent investigation into it, has exposed a tangled web of shell companies obscuring ownership and loopholes that caused delays in cleanup and informing the public. The public found out in March about a secret biolab operating in a warehouse in Reedley, California, about 25 miles southeast of Fresno. But the warehouse and its biological hazards were discovered months earlier, on Dec. 19, 2022, by Jesalyn Harper, a code enforcement officer with the City of Reedley Fire Department. Responding to an anonymous tip about the supposedly vacant warehouse,...

...A new analysis of its DNA suggests that Ursus maritimus split from the brown bear between 4 million and 5 million years ago -- around the same time when, some scientists believe, the Arctic's thick sea ice first formed. With such old origins, the creature must have weathered extreme shifts in climate, researchers report online July 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Simulations of how the DNA changed over time suggest that polar bear populations rose and fell with the temperature. After thriving during cooler times between 800,000 and 600,000 years ago, the bears seem to...

n the November issue, we looked at how scientists are using DNA analysis to track down endangered species that are being hunted for food. Here, Dave Arnold talks about why some people prefer exotic meats. For the most part, Americans are obsessed with tenderness, and favor mild-flavored meat. We eat a fairly small number of animals, almost all of them slaughtered young, when their meat is at its least flavorful. Fortunately, some of us are starting to realize that meat can be much more interesting. As the food revolution continues to gain traction, our ancestral lust for robust, unusual meats...

LOS ANGELES - American scientists have found the first evidence of a genetic link to migraines. Scientists have known for a while that migraines appear to run in families, but this is the first time a specific region on a chromosome has been linked to migraines with aura, also called classic migraines. The University of California, Los Angeles researchers analyzed blood samples from 50 Finnish families. Each of the families had three or more members who suffer from migraines. The scientists looked for genetic markers in common among the blood samples. They found three common markers linked to the fourth ...

IF your home resonates to nightly snoring, it could be because your family inherited a round-shaped head. Round-headed people tend to interrupt sleep with snoring more than those with long, thin faces, says a study at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. There is now a hunt on for the "snoring genes" that influence head shape, says Dr Mark Hans, of the department of orthodontics at the university's school of dentistry. Before the study, age, sex and obesity were used to predict chronic snoring. Now his team has used the shape of a person's head as one indicator of ...