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Keyword: genetics

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  • Genetic Science vs. Belief: Racial differences are real, but no cause for discrimination.

    07/08/2014 7:03:17 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 5 replies
    National Review ^ | 07/08/2014 | Michael Barone
    ‘New analyses of the human genome establish that human evolution has been recent, copious and regional,” writes Nicholas Wade in his recently published book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. That sounds reasonable, and Wade, a science reporter and editor for many years at Nature and the New York Times, seems an unimpeachable source. But many well-meaning people will regard his words as provocative and even dangerous. For they fatally undermine the idea, widely shared by so-called progressives, that any apparent differences between groups of people are the product of nurture rather than nature, of social conditioning rather...
  • Is the Gay Gene a myth? Scientists say homosexuality impossible to determine by DNA

    06/26/2014 7:09:25 PM PDT · by NetAddicted · 139 replies
    Christian News ^ | 07/23/2014 | Garrett Haley
    CHICAGO – The results of a comprehensive scientific study released earlier this year suggest that homosexuality cannot be directly traced to a ‘gay gene,’ but is instead dependent on a variety of factors, including environmental and social influences. Pro-homosexual activists have long claimed that homosexuality and abnormal “sexual orientations” are primarily caused by genetic factors. They argue that individuals with a hereditary “gay gene” are predisposed toward same-sex attractions and thus unable to appreciate traditional marriages. However, scientific findings released earlier this year during the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago call this premise into question. During...
  • Genetic counselor to parents: Don’t like what you see? Abort.

    06/11/2014 4:38:33 PM PDT · by Morgana · 20 replies
    Jill Stanek ^ | Jill Stanek
    I will always remember that look on her face. I knew it was not good news. We were expecting our third child. My wife, Samantha, went to our doctor for a routine appointment. Our first two pregnancies went perfectly. Not this time. After analyzing the blood Samantha provided, the doctor determined that there was an increased risk for our child to have spina bifida…. After we arrived at the specialist for additional tests… we met with a genetic specialist who did everything in her power to use words I had never heard of before. Illnesses, deformities and abnormalities: she laid...
  • A Biological Basis for Race?

    06/07/2014 5:58:40 AM PDT · by Jack Black · 52 replies
    City Journal ^ | June 6, 2014 | Steven Malanga
    A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, by Nicholas Wade (Penguin Press, 288 pp., $27.95) In 2001, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial provocatively titled “Racial Profiling in Medical Research.” The author, Robert Schwartz, reiterated the commonly held view that no biological basis exists for race, and then argued that physicians should not consider race in their research or medical practice. This prompted a sharp response from geneticist Neil Risch, who pointed out that numerous studies had demonstrated significant genetic differences among humans based on continental ancestry, suggesting evidence of five distinct races. Among the reasons...
  • Pedophiles: born that way?

    05/31/2014 5:36:36 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 61 replies
    Discover Magazine ^ | Razib Khan
    Gawker published a piece on the neurological problems which might result in pedophilia, and naturally a lot of shock and disgust was triggered. The piece is titled Born This Way: Sympathy and Science for Those Who Want to Have Sex with Children. This isn’t something you want to click through to lightly. So fair warning. The neurobiological material did pique my interest: “There was nothing significant in the frontal lobes or temporal lobes,” says Cantor. “It turned out the differences weren’t in the grey matter. The differences were in the white matter.”“The white matter” is the shorthand term for groupings...
  • Are Homosexuals Born that Way?

    05/31/2014 5:53:32 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 167 replies
    Stand to Reason ^ | 05/31/2014 | ALAN SHLEMON
    Lady Gaga’s mega-hit song “Born this Way” sold millions of copies affirming what many people believe: homosexuality is hardwired. In fact, people think that’s as axiomatic as saying the earth revolves around the sun. No rational person rejects the idea. The only hold-outs, it is said, are either ignorant of science, homophobic, or bigots (read: Christians). But before I explain why this view is beset with problems, let me make a tactical suggestion. Many Christians get defensive when someone says homosexuality is inborn. I understand the temptation to argue against this claim. But it’s a mistake to try to show...
  • DNA From 12,000-Year-Old Skeleton Helps Answer the Question: Who Were the First Americans?

    05/16/2014 5:30:54 AM PDT · by Renfield · 35 replies
    Smithsonian Magazine ^ | 5-15-2014 | Mohi Kumar
    ome 12,000 years ago, a teenage girl took a walk in what’s now the Yucatan Peninsula and fell 190 feet into a deep pit, breaking her pelvis and likely killing her instantly. Over time, the pit—part of an elaborate limestone cave system—became a watery grave as the most recent ice age ended, glaciers melted and sea levels rose. In 2007, cave divers happened upon her remarkably preserved remains, which form the oldest, most complete and genetically intact human skeleton in the New World. Her bones, according to new research published in Science, hold the key to a question that has...
  • 30-year New York Times Science Writer Out After Writing Book About Genetics, Race

    05/11/2014 10:16:48 AM PDT · by mojito · 65 replies
    Daily Caller ^ | 5/10/2014 | Chris Reed
    Nicholas Wade, a British-born science reporter and editor for more than 30 years with The New York Times, is no longer with the newspaper — just days after the release of his latest book, in which he depicts blacks with roots in sub-Saharan Africa as genetically less adapted to modern life than whites and Asians. Was The New York Times uncomfortable with Wade’s science or his conclusions? It’s unclear. Neither Wade nor his former employer returned requests for comment. Wade’s last Times article appeared April 24. His Penguin Press book “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History” arrived in...
  • What if race is more than a social construct?

    05/10/2014 12:45:28 PM PDT · by Altura Ct. · 266 replies
    Globe & Mail ^ | 5/10/2014
    Nicholas Wade, a leading science writer whose specialty is human evolution, likes to ask interesting questions. Here are some examples: Why has the West been the most exploratory and innovative civilization in the world for the past 500 years? Why are Jews of European descent so massively overrepresented among the top achievers in the arts and sciences? Why is the Chinese diaspora successful all around the world? Why is it so difficult to modernize tribal societies? Why has economic development been so slow in Africa? Contemporary thinkers have offered lots of provocative answers for such questions. It’s all about geography....
  • Darwin’s unexploded bomb

    05/06/2014 5:19:14 PM PDT · by Altura Ct. · 86 replies
    ‘This book is an attempt to understand the world as it is, not as it ought to be.’ So writes Nicholas Wade, the British-born science editor of The New York Times, in his new book A Troublesome Inheritance. For some time the post-War view of human nature as being largely culturally-formed has been under attack just as surely as the biblical explanation of mankind’s creation began to face pressure in the early 19th century. What Steven Pinker called the blank slate view of our species, whereby humans are products of social conditions and therefore possible to mould and to perfect...
  • Muzzled by Monsanto

    04/17/2014 8:51:12 AM PDT · by Renfield · 51 replies
    Boulder Weekly ^ | 4-3-2014 | Caitlin Rocket
    After nearly 30 years studying how plants use their genes to defend against viruses, Vicki Vance, a professor at the University of South Carolina, doesn’t see genetically modifying plants as a malevolent or arrogantly God-like endeavor. “There’s DNA in the world and it gets passed from one organism to another and it’s the natural thing. If that’s the problem you have with transgenic plants, that’s not a good reason to be against them,” Vance says. She does, however, have a problem with mega corporations allegedly using their money and power to hide the risks of new forms of genetic technology....
  • California's Anti-GMO Hysteria

    04/01/2014 4:02:25 PM PDT · by neverdem · 64 replies
    National Review Online ^ | March 31, 2014 | Henry Miller
    A new bill to mandate labeling of genetically altered food gets history and science all wrong.Last week, in a victory for California’s radical anti-technology minority, S.B. 131 passed the state’s senate Health Committee by a vote of five to two. This misguided piece of legislation, introduced by state senator Noreen Evans, would require that “any food, except as provided, offered for retail sale in the state be considered misbranded if it is entirely or partially genetically engineered, as defined, and that fact is not disclosed in a specified manner.” In other words, it would require a label to inform consumers...
  • Homosexuality and the Heterosexual Dilemma

    03/22/2014 5:53:24 PM PDT · by jxb7076 · 43 replies
    Author: jxb7076 ^ | 3/22/14 | jxb7076
    From a socio-moral-biblical perspective Homosexuality is much more complex than it appears on the surface and can be argued from various viewpoints ranging from Scientific, Biblical, and Secular – to name a few. Read more at: http://jxb7076.hubpages.com/hub/Homosexuality-and-the-Heterosexual-Dilemma
  • Scientists Reconstruct Faces From DNA Samples

    03/21/2014 1:08:25 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 17 replies
    www.forbes.com ^ | 03-21-2014 | Alex Knapp Forbes Staff
    Sometime in the future, technicians will go over the scene of the crime. They’ll uncover some DNA evidence and take it to the lab. And when the cops need to get a picture of the suspect, they won’t have to ask eyewitnesses to give descriptions to a sketch artist – they’ll just ask the technicians to get a mugshot from the DNA. That, at least, is the potential of new research being published today in PLOS Genetics. In that paper, a team of scientists describe how they were able to produce crude 3D models of faces extrapolated from a person’s...
  • Genetic mugshot recreates faces from nothing but DNA

    03/21/2014 1:05:01 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 17 replies
    www.newscientist.com ^ | 20 March 2014 | by Peter Aldhous
    A MURDER has been committed, and all the cops have to go on is a trace of DNA left at the scene. It doesn't match any profile in databases of known criminals, and the trail goes cold. But what if the police could issue a wanted poster based on a realistic "photofit" likeness built from that DNA? Not if, but when, claim researchers who have developed a method for determining how our genes influence facial shape. One day, the technique may even allow us to gaze into the faces of extinct human-like species that interbred with our own ancestors. It's...
  • Woolly Mammoths Are Coming Back, Say Cloning Scientists

    03/16/2014 10:39:35 AM PDT · by DogByte6RER · 80 replies
    DVICE ^ | March 14, 2014 | Michael Trei
    Woolly mammoths are coming back, say cloning scientists In what sounds like it could be the plot for the next Jurassic Park movie, a team of scientists in Siberia says there's a 'high chance' that they will be able to clone a woolly mammoth. The breakthrough comes as a result of last year's discovery of an incredibly well-preserved mammoth carcass, frozen in the permafrost of Siberia's Malolyakhovskiy island. The scientists estimate that the animal is about 43,000 years old, and was 50-60 years old when it died in distress after getting stuck in the ice. In the ten months since...
  • Epigenetics: The sins of the father - The roots of inheritance may extend beyond the genome...

    03/14/2014 1:07:40 PM PDT · by neverdem · 32 replies
    Nature News ^ | 05 March 2014 | Virginia Hughes
    The roots of inheritance may extend beyond the genome, but the mechanisms remain a puzzle. When Brian Dias became a father last October, he was, like any new parent, mindful of the enormous responsibility that lay before him. From that moment on, every choice he made could affect his newborn son's physical and psychological development. But, unlike most new parents, Dias was also aware of the influence of his past experiences — not to mention those of his parents, his grandparents and beyond. Where one's ancestors lived, or how much they valued education, can clearly have effects that pass down...
  • The "Born Gay" Hoax

    02/27/2014 3:43:57 PM PST · by ResisTyr · 164 replies
    FreeWebs.com ^ | n/a | Unknown
    The Born “Gay” Hoax By 1985, the pro-sodomy movement The born “gay” hoax was invented in 1985 by Marshall Kirk and Dr. Hunter Madsen. Marshall Kirk graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1980 majoring in psychology and went on to become a writer and researcher in neuropsychiatry. Dr. Hunter Madsen earned a PhD in politics from Harvard University in 1985, then went on to become an expert on public persuasion tactics, social marketing, and has designed commercial marketing on Madison Avenue. He has also served as a consultant to pro-sodomy media campaigns across America. In 1985, Marshall Kirk...
  • FDA weighs risks of 3-person embryo fertilization

    02/25/2014 9:03:57 AM PST · by ColdOne · 33 replies
    myfoxny.com ^ | 2/25/14 | MATTHEW PERRONE/ AP
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal health regulators will consider this week whether to green light a provocative new fertilization technique that could eventually create babies from the DNA of three people, with the goal of preventing mothers from passing on debilitating genetic diseases to their children. The Food and Drug Administration has framed its two-day meeting as a "scientific, technologic and clinical" discussion about how to test the approach in humans. But the technique itself raises a number of ethical questions, including whether the government should sanction the creation of genetically modified humans.
  • Scientists Create Genetic Map of History

    02/15/2014 4:57:49 PM PST · by SunkenCiv · 26 replies
    Popular Archaeology ^ | February 13, 2014 | University College London
    "Because our approach uses only genetic data, it provides information independent from other sources. Many of our genetic observations match historical events, and we also see evidence of previously unrecorded genetic mixing. For example, the DNA of the Tu people in modern China suggests that in around 1200 C.E., Europeans similar to modern Greeks mixed with an otherwise Chinese-like population. Plausibly, the source of this European-like DNA might be merchants travelling the nearby Silk Road."