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<p>Twins with different skin colors — one black and the other white — have been born in Berlin, Germany.</p> <p>Doctors say it is an extremely rare occurrence, but it is possible if genes combine in a certain way.</p> <p>The twin boys, named Ryan and Leo, are the offspring of a mixed-race couple.</p>

Twins with different skin colors — one black and the other white — have been born in Berlin, Germany. The twin boys, named Ryan and Leo, are the offspring of a mixed-race couple

Kirstie Alley When the formerly svelte actress gained quite a few pounds post-"Cheers," she seemed like an ideal candidate to endorse Jenny Craig. All she had to do was tell women she got back her formerly fabulous figure thanks to Jenny. There was just one problem -- she couldn’t stop gaining weight. So unfortunately for Kirstie, she was replaced by Valerie Bertinelli, who was soon seen on TV fitting into her "skinny jeans" again.

Enlarge ImageSmoking gun. People with certain variations in nicotine-receptor genes face a greater risk of becoming hooked on cigarettes into adulthood.Credit: Hendrike Peer pressure may push teens to start smoking, but their DNA keeps them hooked on the nicotine buzz into their adult years. So says a new study that finds that people with variations in particular genes are more likely to become addicted if they start smoking during early adolescence. The work may explain why some people find it harder to kick the habit and also underscores the importance of preventing children from smoking in the first place....

Dr. Wilson was not picking a fight when he published “Sociobiology” in 1975, a synthesis of ideas about the evolution of social behavior. He asserted that many human behaviors had a genetic basis, an idea then disputed by many social scientists and by Marxists intent on remaking humanity. Dr. Wilson was amazed at what ensued, which he describes as a long campaign of verbal assault and harassment with a distinctly Marxist flavor led by two Harvard colleagues, Richard C. Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould. The new fight is one Dr. Wilson has picked. It concerns a central feature of evolution,...

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...

Genes Missing in Autism Needed for Learning-Triggered Brain Growth Surprising findings from a gene study have set the world of autism research spinning on a new axis. The new study shows that many of the different genes linked to autism -- and many of the new autism genes discovered in the course of the study -- are part of a network that allows a child's brain to build new connections in response to experience. The good news is that a surprisingly large number of these mutant genes affect the on/off switches that control experience-triggered brain development. That's much better than...

In the current issue of Nature, researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Hinxton, UK, present the most precise map of genetic recombination yet. The study sheds light on fundamental questions about genetic shuffling and has implications for the tracking of disease genes and their inheritance.

Asian American students will outnumber white classmates for the first time in the freshman class at the region's most prestigious public magnet school this fall, a milestone reached as the number of African Americans and Hispanics has remained low and the Fairfax County School Board prepares to review the school's admission policy. The rising concentration of Asian Americans at T.J. mirrors demographic trends in other elite math and science magnet schools. In New York, the selective and specialized Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School have Asian American majorities, although about 10 percent of...

James P. Evans, a physician and molecular biologist, teaches genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He also directs the school’s Clinical Cancer Genetics Services, counseling patients about genetic testing. On weekends Dr. Evans, under the auspices of the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center — a Congressionally mandated program — teaches the nation’s judges about genetics. Dr. Evans, 49, was interviewed recently in New York; he had come to speak at the World Science Festival. Q. WHY DO JUDGES NEED TO KNOW THEIR GENETICS? A. Because they are frequently trying cases that hinge on genetics....

Enlarge ImageDoggie diversity. Researchers have linked pointing, herding, and other canine traits to specific gene variations.Credit: Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition The adage that you can't teach an old dog new tricks may have some basis in truth, or at least in DNA. It turns out that a pointer's point, a border collie's herding instinct, and several other canine characteristics may be hard-wired in dogs' genes, according to a new study. The advance could help breeders weed out diseases in man's best friend and shed light on the genetic basis of certain human disorders. Since humans first domesticated dogs...

Why are some people gay? Most researchers who study sexual orientation think that both genetic and environmental factors play a role, but the relative contributions of each remain unclear. A new study of Swedish twins reinforces earlier findings that environmental influences--including the environment in the womb--may play a greater role than genes. Scientists studying complex human behaviors often turn to twin studies. Researchers look at both identical and fraternal twins to see how often they share a trait--a parameter called concordance. The greater the concordance among genetically identical twins compared with fraternal twins--who share only half of their genes--the more...

Homosexual behaviour is largely shaped by genetics and random environmental factors, according to findings from the world's largest study of twins. Writing in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, researchers from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm report that genetics and environmental factors (which are specific to an individual, and may include biological processes such as different hormone exposure in the womb), are important determinants of homosexual behaviour. Dr Qazi Rahman, study co-author and a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, explains: "This study puts cold water on any concerns that we...

Why do people vote? Genetic variation in political participation A groundbreaking new study finds that genes significantly affect variation in voter turnout, shedding new light on the reasons why people vote and participate in the political system. The research, conducted by political scientists James H. Fowler, Christopher T. Dawes (of UC San Diego) and psychologist Laura A. Baker (of University of Southern California), appears in the May issue of the American Political Science Review, a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA). "Although we are not the first to suggest a link between genes and political participation," note the...

Last Wednesday, as California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger prepared to tell a biotechnology industry convention in San Diego that his state “is one of the best places to set up shop”, Kári Stefansson was opening a letter that had just landed on his desk at deCODE genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland. The letter read: “It has come to the attention of the California Department of Public Health…that deCODEme Genetics is in violation of California law” for failing to have a clinical laboratory licence in the state and offering genetic tests to consumers resident in the state without a physician's order. It gave...

The finding could open the door to improved treatments. Researchers say they've discovered a gene that may make it easier for people to develop Alzheimer's disease, and it could become a target for drug treatments. "This new work not only provides a better understanding of the mechanism leading to the disease, but identifies a risk factor as an important target for therapy," said Philippe Marambaud, an assistant professor of pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and member of an international team of scientists that released its findings Wednesday. Alzheimer's disease, which causes senility and...

As gay couples race to the altar in California this week, scientists may have found an answer to the so-called gay paradox. Studies suggest that homosexuality is at least partly genetic. And although homosexuals have far fewer children than heterosexuals, so-called gay genes apparently survive in the population. A new study bolsters support for an intriguing idea: These same genes may increase fertility in women. Despite some tantalizing leads over the past 2 decades, researchers have yet to isolate any genes directly linked to homosexuality. Nevertheless, a number of studies have shown that male homosexuals have more gay male relatives...

As the human genome gradually yields up its secrets, scientists are finding some genetic events, such as rearrangements in chromosomes, are less random than they had previously thought. Originating as structural weaknesses in unstable stretches of DNA, abnormal chromosomes may, rarely, result in a disabling genetic disease one or two generations later. A report in the Feb. 17 issue of Science by genetics researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania analyzes genetic predisposition to the translocation t(11;22), a swapping of genetic material between chromosomes 11 and 22. They found an unexpectedly high frequency of new...

The water flea Daphnia pulex is a commonly used model organism among ecologists and other environmental scientists. Copyright Holder: P.D.N. Hebert, University of Guelph When sexual species reproduce asexually, they accumulate bad mutations at an increased rate, report two Indiana University Bloomington evolutionary biologists in this week's Science. The researchers used the model species Daphnia pulex, or water flea, for their studies. The finding supports a hypothesis that sex is an evolutionary housekeeper that adeptly reorders genes and efficiently removes deleterious gene mutations. The study also suggests sexual reproduction maintains its own existence by punishing, in a sense, individuals of...

jolson@pioneerpress.com Research applies to weight gain that comes with age A gene common to mice and men may be partly responsible for the rising rate of obesity that comes with age. Researchers at the University of Minnesota had been studying the so-called Girk4 gene in mice for its role in heart defects, but then noticed that removing the gene caused mice to gain weight over time. "This was not an outcome we expected, but now we have an animal model that may provide new insight into human obesity," said Kevin Wickman, an associate professor of pharmacology at the U. Drug...

Thomas—who changed sex ten years ago but kept his ovaries and womb so he could have children—told us: "I feel on top of the world. "I'm 36 weeks now and almost due but I feel fantastic. Every day Nancy a nd I think about how we just cannot wait to hold our daughter for the first time, to finally get to touch her and see her face. "We have her nursery ready and her diapers are lined up in her bedroom. Everything is ready to go. "We have even picked a name which we both love—although we're waiting until she...

"MELBOURNE: The belief that babies born to first-cousins will suffer from some kind of deformities is all a myth, say researchers in Australia. "

A conversation between The Root Editor-in-Chief Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nobel laureate and DNA pioneer James Watson about race and genetics, Jewish intelligence, blacks and basketball and Watson's African roots. --- HLG: Imagine if you were an African or an African-American intellectual. And it's 10 years from now. And you pick up The New York Times and some geneticist says, A) that intelligence is genetic, and B) the difference as measured on standardized tests between black people and white people, is traceable to a genetic basis. What would you, as a black intellectual, do, do you think? JW: I...

Major depressive disorder is a common and complex condition that impacts about 15% of the population of the United States, yet very little is known about the mechanisms behind the psychiatric disorder. What is known is that there are clinical parallels between depressive symptoms and the symptoms of certain inflammatory disorders. In findings published electronically in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from University of Miami found polymorphisms in inflammation-related genes that are associated with susceptibility to major depression and antidepressant response. Two genes critical for T-cell function in the immune system have been associated with susceptibility for major depressive disorder and antidepressant...

Arranged marriages between British Asians raise the risk of in-breeding and birth defects, a Government minister has said. Phil Woolas, a junior environment minister, came under fire from Muslim groups already concerned about the public reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks about sharia law. Mr Woolas, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. He said: "Part of the risk, I am told by the health service, is first-cousin marriages. If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to...

Although “Viking” literally means “pirate,” recent research has indicated that the Vikings were also traders to the fishmongers of Europe. Stereotypically, these Norsemen are usually pictured wearing a horned helmet but in a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE this week, Jørgen Dissing and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen, investigated what went under the helmet; the scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers. Analysis of DNA from the remains of ancient humans provides valuable insights into such important questions as the origin...

Dutch scientists claim they have completed the first sequencing of an individual woman's DNA. The researchers at Leiden University Medical Center say they have sequenced the entire genome of one their female researchers, though no other scientists have yet verified their data. The first sequencing of a composite human genome was announced in 2001. Four individual male genomes have so far been sequenced. Scientists have also mapped the DNA of about a dozen mammals, including chimpanzees, dogs, cats, cows and a platypus. The full complement of an organism's DNA is called its genome. In animals and people, it is made...

At least two modules of genes promote stemness Two separate groups of genes seem able to promote stemness. And while most adult tissue stem cells share one program, embryonic stem cells and at least some human cancer cells share another. In fact, one well-known oncogene, myc, was able to both initiate the embryonic stem cell module and generate cancer stem cells. These findings, reported recently by researchers at Stanford University in California and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, support the still-controversial hypothesis that embryonic stem cells and at least some cancer stem cells share a common genetic program....

Our president was busy today with public events. President Bush signed H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, President Bush Signs H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 President Bush marked this the Day of Solidarity with the Cuban people. President Bush Discusses Cuba, Marks Day of Solidarity He met with the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon Nasrallah Sfeir in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, President Bush met with Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander George Lisicki in the Oval Office. Vice President Dick Cheney delivered the main address during U.S. Coast...

A bill that would have altered procedures around newborn genetic testing and blood-sample storage in Minnesota ran into a veto Tuesday. Gov. Tim Pawlenty said while he supports the testing done at birth for medical disorders, he wasn't convinced the bill gave parents enough power to keep a child's samples from being used in long-term research. An estimated 73,000 newborns are tested each year, and approximately 140 are found to have a confirmed medical disorder. Early diagnosis can help bring about earlier intervention. Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, said the veto undermines the program and defies a promise he said he...

While it has long been known that embryonic stem cells have the ability to develop into any kind of tissue-specific cells, the exact mechanism as to how this occurs has heretofore not been demonstrated. Now, researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and elsewhere have succeeded in graphically revealing this process, resolving a long-standing question as to whether the stem cells achieve their development through selective activation or selective repression of genes. The collaborative research group, which included Dr. Eran Meshorer of the Department of Genetics at the Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has...

If it has a bill and webbed feet like a duck, lays eggs like a bird or a reptile but also produces milk and has a coat of fur like a mammal, what could the genetics of the duck-billed platypus possibly be like? Well, just as peculiar: an amalgam of genes reflecting significant branching and transitions in evolution. An international scientific team, which announced the first decoding of the platypus genome on Wednesday, said the findings provided “many clues to the function and evolution of all mammalian genomes,” including that of humans, and should “inspire rapid advances in other investigations...

science editor A major medical row will erupt this month when scientists and health experts hold two key meetings to discuss the controversial subject of marriages between cousins and their impact on health in Britain. The debates will be held by the Royal Society of Medicine as part of its 100 Years of Medical Genetics celebrations on 23 May, and by the Progress Educational Trust at Clifford Chance in east London on 29 May. Both will reveal deep divisions among scientists. Some researchers and politicians say inter-cousin unions, which are highly prevalent among British Pakistanis, have led to a striking...

Last week, with little attention or fanfare, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 414 to 1 to outlaw genetic discrimination. The only dissenter was the irascible libertarian Ron Paul. The Senate passed the same bill unanimously, and President Bush is ready to sign it. The bill tells employers and insurance companies that they may not use the results of genetic tests in choosing their employees and customers. One purpose of the bill is to encourage genetic testing. But the more important reason for it is to uphold a sense of fairness. Just as the law forbids discrimination against a person...

A new study released today in the online edition of Physiological Genomics finds that individuals with a specific genetic variation consistently consume more sugary foods. The study offers the first evidence of the role that a variation in the GLUT2 gene – a gene that controls sugar entry into the cells – has on sugar intake, and may help explain individual preferences for foods high in sugar. The study was conducted by Ahmed El-Sohemy, Karen M. Eny, Thomas M.S. Wolever and Benedicte Fontaine-Bisson, all of the Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Their study, entitled Genetic Variant...

It seems like a peculiar case of genomic overkill: a single-celled bacterium has been found that keeps tens of thousands of copies of its genome. The finding sets a record for most genomes per cell, but also poses an obvious question: what could be the advantage of stashing away as much as 200,000 copies of your genome? The number of genome copies in each cell varies by species. Many bacteria have only one copy; most cells in the human body contain two. Plants are notorious for being genomically promiscuous, picking up extra genomes then losing them again in a cycle...

Duchenne muscular dystrophy may not seem to have much in common with heart attacks. One is a rare inherited disease that primarily strikes boys. The other is a common cause of death in both men and women. To Atul J. Butte, they are surprisingly similar. Dr. Butte, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford, is among a growing band of researchers trying to redefine how diseases are classified — by looking not at their symptoms or physiological measurements, but at their genetic underpinnings. It turns out that a similar set of genes is active in boys with Duchenne and adults...

ELDORADO, TEX. — The Yearning For Zion ranch a few miles west of nowhere was built to keep the secrets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hidden from prying eyes. But the church's days of splendid isolation and impenetrable secrecy – only the top fringe of the temple's white limestone walls visible from a distant rural road at the edge of the 1,700-acre spread – are rapidly ending. The Texas Rangers raid of the secluded ranch in early April led to sensational allegations of grooming underage girls for marriage and sexual abuse. And the discovery...

After more than a decade of debate, Congress has reached agreement on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which will protect the rights of patients who undergo genetic screening, specifically preventing discrimination by employers and insurers. Conditions that can cause sudden cardiac arrest, such as Long QT and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy can often be identified through genetic testing, and the enactment of GINA is an important step to remove potential legal and financial barriers for individual and family screening.

The 55 men in a drug doping study in Sweden were normal and healthy. And all agreed, for the sake of science, to be injected with testosterone and then undergo the standard urine test to screen for doping with the hormone. The results were unambiguous: the test worked for most of the men, showing that they had taken the drug. But 17 of the men tested negative. Their urine seemed fine, with no excess testosterone even though the men clearly had taken the drug. It was, researchers say, a striking demonstration of a genetic discovery. Those 17 men can build...

MOSCOW (AP) - For nine decades after Bolshevik executioners gunned down Czar Nicholas II and his family, there were no traces of the remains of Crown Prince Alexei, the hemophiliac heir to Russia's throne. Some said the delicate 13-year-old had somehow survived and escaped; others believed his bones were lost in Russia's vastness, buried in secret amid fear and chaos as the country lurched into civil war. Now an official says DNA tests have solved the mystery by identifying bone shards found in a forest as those of Alexei and his sister, Grand Duchess Maria. The remains of their parents—Nicholas...

Researchers looking for genes that raise the risk of osteoporosis found seven different sequences associated with the bone-thinning disease, and one team found two that might predict the risk for 20 percent of people. The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet on Tuesday, may also shed light into how osteoporosis develops. A British team identified two small mutations called SNPs -- single-letter changes in the DNA code -- that predicted thinning bones. They scanned the genes of 2,094 female twins and identified a link between decreased bone mineral density and changes in genes on...

"Different is not deficient," is the theme of this speech by Obama mentor Wright. That and a crash course in black eugenics and phrenology that would make a fascist blush. It would seem there is a profound difference between the black brain and other brains after all. At least according to Reverend Wright. According to this shining exemplar of Barack Obama and his deep "scholarship," is vast learning concerning black liberation theology, black people are right-brained, white people are left-brained. and never the twain shall meet.

Doctors who treat patients with heart failure have long been puzzled by a peculiar observation. Many black patients seem to do just as well if they take a mainstay of therapy, a class of drugs called beta blockers, as if they do not. It is almost as if they were immune to the drugs. Now researchers at Washington University and the University of Maryland have discovered why: these nonresponsive patients have a slightly altered version of a gene that muscles use to control responses to nerve signals. People with this altered gene are making what amounts to their own version...

WASHINGTON: Human beings for 100,000 years lived in tiny, separate groups, facing harsh conditions that brought them to the brink of extinction, before they reunited and populated the world, genetic researchers in a study said on Thursday. "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction," said paleontologist Meave Leakey, of Stony Brook University, New York. The genetic study examined for the first time the evolution of our species from its origins with "mitochondrial Eve," a female hominid...

Gene Disorder Complicates Sect Custody FightApril 27, 2008 · Lawyers for the mothers of 462 children taken from a polygamist ranch in West Texas will ask a state appeals court for relief, but the process is slowed by problems in determining the children's parentage. Texas family law officials continue to investigate allegations of physical and sexual abuse. Wade Goodwyn and Liane Hansen discuss the legal proceedings.Meanwhile, many of the children in the FLDS group suffer from fumarase deficiency, a genetic disease that causes acute retardation and physical deformation. The disease was spread through decades of inbreeding, according to John...

Many geneticists now think that the behaviour of our genes can be altered by experience—and even that these changes can be passed on to future generations. This finding may transform our understanding of inheritance and evolution It has long been known that an organism's fate is not determined by genes alone. This much we can tell by observing identical twins, who over time tend to diverge both physiologically (developing differences in, say, height and posture) and psychologically (exhibiting different personality traits and even, sometimes, sexual orientations). Despite most identical twins having similar diets and lifestyles, subtle cultural and environmental distinctions...

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers have agreed to make it illegal for employers and insurance companies to deny applicants jobs and health care coverage because DNA tests show they are genetically disposed to a disease. Supporters of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act said Wednesday that the Senate planned to vote on it Thursday. The House also is likely to give quick approval to the bill, sending it to President Bush for his signature. A similar bill passed the House by a 420-3 vote a year ago. The White House, at the time, indicated its support for the legislation. Sponsors reached an agreement...

A01 Twenty years after DNA fingerprints were first admitted by American courts as a way to link suspects to crime scenes, a new and very different class of genetic test is approaching the bench. Rather than simply proving, for example, that the blood on a suspect's clothes does or does not match that of a murder victim, these "second generation" DNA tests seek to shed light on the biological traits and psychological states of the accused. In effect, they allow genes to "testify" in ways never before possible, in some cases resolving long-standing legal tangles but in others raising new...

THE Pentagon is joining with universities and hospitals in $US250 million ($267m) research to discover how to help wounded soldiers regenerate skin, muscle and even limbs from their own stem cells. The army's surgeon-general said he envisioned the day when adult stem cells would be harvested before a soldier goes into the battle and then used to regrow new limbs within days of suffering a combat wound.