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The words, emblazoned on two signs that hang off U.S. Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai's campaign bus, appear next to two images: one of a stoic Ayyadurai looking into the camera, and another of a closeup of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wearing a Native American headdress. Ayyadurai, a 54-year-old scientist born in Bombay, India, told the Washington Times the city of Camridge, Mass., had ordered him to remove the signs because they were placed "without approvals and permits." He believes this was instead a case of the city trying to clamp down on his right to free speech. “This is a...

It's not just the double helix! For the first time, scientists have identified the existence of a new DNA structure never before seen in living cells. The discovery of what's described as a 'twisted knot' of DNA in living cells confirms our complex genetic code is crafted with more intricate symmetry than just the double helix structure everybody associates with DNA – and the forms these molecular variants take affect how our biology functions. "When most of us think of DNA, we think of the double helix," says antibody therapeutics researcher Daniel Christ from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research...

One of the things I fuss about a lot (especially at Buffer) are words—very simple words, in fact. Should it say “Hi” or “Hey?” Should it be “cheers” or “thanks?” How about “but” or “and?” There are many occasions when Joel and I sit over one line and change it multiple times, until we feel it really sits right. This is partly to improve our metrics for click rate and others. It is also to simply create the right emotion. The one key question we ask ourselves is: “How does this make you feel?” The question might sound very...

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen will meet former US President Bill Clinton in Copenhagen on Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed. Clinton will be shown around Christiansborg, the seat of Denmark’s parliament, before one-to-one talks with Rasmussen, the PM’s office confirmed in a press statement. […] He is scheduled to give a keynote speech at a summit held by the Presidents Institute foundation in the Danish capital on Wednesday, with up to 3,000 European leaders expected to attend. …

Amid efforts to find alien life, scientists have not yet confirmed the existence of an extraterrestrial civilization. Findings of a new study suggest this has something do with the element phosphorus lacking in the cosmos. Life-Giving PhosphorusPhosphorus is the 11th most common element on Earth, and it is fundamental to all living things. Phosphorus is one of only six chemical elements on our planet that organisms depend on. "[Phosphorus] helps form the backbone of the long chains of nucleotides that create RNA and DNA; it is part of the phospholipids in cell membranes; and is a building block of the...

In 2016, NASA sequenced DNA in space for the first time, but alien life, we may soon discover, may be vastly different on other planets and moons, particularly as we expand our efforts to explore ocean worlds with our solar system and beyond. “Most strategies for life detection rely upon finding features known to be associated with Earth's life, such as particular classes of molecules,” the researchers wrote. DNA and RNA are the building blocks of life on Earth, but the molecules of life might differ substantially on another planet. A new paper by scientists at Georgetown University, published online...

Ready for a world in which a $50 DNA test can predict your odds of earning a PhD or forecast which toddler gets into a selective preschool? Robert Plomin, a behavioral geneticist, says that’s exactly what’s coming. For decades genetic researchers have sought the hereditary factors behind intelligence, with little luck. But now gene studies have finally gotten big enough—and hence powerful enough—to zero in on genetic differences linked to IQ. A year ago, no gene had ever been tied to performance on an IQ test. Since then, more than 500 have, thanks to gene studies involving more than 200,000...

In the early 19th century, Jean-François Champollion used the Rosetta Stone to begin the process of deciphering the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. We already knew Egypt through the Bible and the histories of the Greeks, but even Herodotus wrote 2,000 years after the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the translation of hieroglyphics, the legend of Egypt came to life. What had been cloudy became clear. In Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard’s Medical School and the Broad Institute, introduces us to...

Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is calling for a “cultural revolution” in how people consume online news so that “more shame" no longer means “more clicks” and more advertising income. Lewinsky told hundreds of privacy professionals Tuesday “we need to communicate online with compassion, consume news with compassion, and click with compassion." "Just imagine walking a mile in someone else’s headline," she said in a Washington speech that was contractually closed to the press.

Burials from a cave in Morocco have yielded the oldest human DNA evidence yet from Africa, offering new insight into Stone Age migrations. The DNA samples come from one of the most ancient cemeteries in the world, the Grotte des Pigeons, near the village of Taforalt in northeast Morocco. Beginning around 15,000 years ago, a culture of hunter-gatherers buried their dead with animal horns and other adornments inside this cave. Though burials were found as recently as 2006, archaeologists have been excavating the cave since the 1940s. The name 20th-century researchers gave to this culture —the Iberomaurusians—reflects the theory that...

A more sustainable pint of craft beer possibly coming to a pub near you +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hoppy beer is all the rage among craft brewers and beer lovers, and now UC Berkeley biologists have come up with a way to create these unique flavors and aromas without using hops. The researchers created strains of brewer's yeast that not only ferment the beer but also provide two of the prominent flavor notes provided by hops. In double-blind taste tests, employees of Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California, characterized beer made from the engineered strains as more hoppy than a control beer...

[A]rticles claiming that the mission activated Kelly's “space genes,” that 7 percent of his genes didn't return to normal post-spaceflight, and that he and Mark are no longer identical twins..... these stories are biologically impossible. If 7 percent of Kelly's genome was altered, he would be about as different from a human as a rhesus monkey. ... Your genome dwells inside the nuclei of your cells. Think of it as an instruction manual: It is the complete set of DNA that describes the form and function of every aspect of your being, with each gene pertaining to a particular task life requires. But this manual...

Modern humans co-existed and interbred not only with Neanderthals, but also with another species of archaic humans, the mysterious Denisovans.

“Scott’s telomeres (endcaps of chromosomes that shorten as one ages) actually became significantly longer in space,” NASA researchers wrote in a statement. The space agency added that Kelly had hundreds of “space genes” activated by the year-long flight which reportedly altered the astronaut’s “immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.” While Scott Kelly’s height and 93 percent of his DNA returned to normal after returning to Earth, NASA confirmed that seven percent of his genes have remained changed and may stay that way. “This is thought to be from the stresses of space travel, which can cause...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in an interview broadcast Sunday said she knows who she is when pressed about her claims of Native-American heritage. She was questioned during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" about an editorial in a Massachusetts newspaper, "Warren must resolve debate on heritage, which said a DNA test would "permanently resolve the issue." “Look, I do know. I know who I am. And never used it for anything. Never got any benefit from it anywhere," Warren said.

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations Security Council that PA residents are the direct descendants of the Canaanites, claiming that ‘Palestine’ made significant contributions to humanity prior to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. During his address at the UN Security Council in which he called on the international community to hold a Middle East peace conference, with the goal of launching multilateral negotiations, Abbas claimed that the Arab residents of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza were in fact descended from the ancient Canaanites. "We are the descendants of the Canaanites who lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years...

In a review published in the journal Trends in Genetics on January 25, scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing discuss what we know about the genetics of ancient individuals from Eurasia (Europe and Western Asia) between 45,000-7,500 years ago. The authors summarized work that investigated the genomes of more than 20 ancients in the Eurasian family tree, including the 45,000-year-old Ust'-Ishim individual from Central Siberia... ..."But with the information from the several individuals available for ancient DNA sequencing we do have hints at interesting population structure, migration and interaction in East Asia." The researchers learned that in...

This April, Harper will publish Chasing Hillary, a new political memoir from New York Times writer-at-large Amy Chozick, EW can confirm exclusively. The book will provide a remarkably intimate and deeply personal portrait of Hillary Clinton as she withstood two dramatic losses for the presidency. Chozick’s book is the result of a decade’s worth of reporting on the former U.S. Secretary of State. Chozick’s front-row seat to Clinton’s presidential campaign implosion in 2008 led to her getting assigned the “Hillary Beat” through to 2016, when she’d once again face a painful defeat, this time in the general election to Donald...

NASA astronauts successfully sequenced the DNA of microbes found aboard the International Space Station, marking the first time unknown organisms were sequenced and identified entirely in space. Previously, microbes had to be sent to Earth for analysis, and this new sequencing marks an important step in diagnosing astronaut illnesses and, someday, identifying any DNA-based life found on other planets... ... As a part of the Genes in Space-3 mission, astronauts on the space station last year touched a petri plate to surfaces on the space station and grew the bacteria found there into colonies, which NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson used...

Josiah Zayner, 36, recently made headlines by becoming the first person to use the revolutionary gene-editing tool Crispr to try to change their own genes. Part way through a talk on genetic engineering, Zayner pulled out a syringe apparently containing DNA and other chemicals designed to trigger a genetic change in his cells associated with dramatically increased muscle mass. He injected the DIY gene therapy into his left arm, live-streaming the procedure on the internet. The former Nasa biochemist, based in California, has become a leading figure in the growing “biohacker” movement, which involves loose collectives of scientists, engineers, artists,...