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For years, we've been asking whether artificial intelligence can write like us, draw like us, code like us, or eventually replace us. Anthropic just gave us a more interesting question: Can AI notice something in nature that human scientists have been staring past?On Wednesday, Anthropic announced that its Claude AI had identified what researchers believe is previously unrecognized biological system hidden in the DNA of bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. The system contains a reverse transcriptase, a nearby partner gene, and a long array of repeating DNA sequences. Anthropic calls it ART, short for array-associated reverse transcriptases.From Anthropic:Today, we’re sharing...

BioRxiv The Preprint Server for Biology The DNA Legacy of Thomas Jefferson Posted September 21, 2026 Richard E. Green, Samuel H. Vohr, Joshua D Kapp, Jane E. Ailes, Samuel Sacco, Remy Nguyen, James Cahill, Peter D. Heintzman, Joanne Flores, Logan Kistler, Courtney A. Hofman, Robert C. Fleischer, Beth Shapiro, Richard Kurin doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.18.752809 This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?]. Abstract Allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered the children of the enslaved Sally Hemings emerged in the context of U.S. presidential politics in the late 1700s and early 1800s and entailed...

For decades, many scientists have confidently dismissed the vast majority of the human DNA as useless evolutionary garbage. Yet a recently published scientific paper in Cell, one of the world’s most prestigious biology journals, declares a “paradigm shift” against the idea that huge portions of the human genome are merely “junk DNA.”After the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, a startling discovery was made. Only about 2 percent of the entire human genome codes for proteins. Scientists naturally asked, what is the other 98 percent doing?Evolutionary biology was ready with an answer. For decades, they had claimed that the...

In a shocking case out of Colorado, a crime lab analyst has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars for tampering with DNA evidence. Imagine your loved one’s rapist or murderer being acquitted because the forensic analyst on the case decided to destroy the DNA proof linking them to the crime. That’s exactly what 66-year-old Yvonne “Missy” Woods did. Over her decades-long career at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, this deranged woman altered DNA data in over one-thousand cases, allowing countless criminals to walk free. For some bizarre reason, this woman threw out DNA from rape kits and even homicide...

James Watson would have aborted his son if a genetic test had been available at the time warning that his child would be born with severe epilepsy. Declaring "I'm not a sadist", the man who co-discovered DNA said that parents, especially mothers, should have a right of genetic veto over the make-up of their child. "Any time you can prevent a seriously sick child from being born, it is good for everyone," Dr Watson told The Sunday Age. "Most mothers wouldn't want to have dwarfs." Dr Watson's views are based on a fierce libertarianism and personal experience. One of his...

James Watson would have aborted his son if a genetic test had been available at the time warning that his child would be born with severe epilepsy. Declaring "I'm not a sadist", the man who co-discovered DNA said that parents, especially mothers, should have a right of genetic veto over the make-up of their child. "Any time you can prevent a seriously sick child from being born, it is good for everyone," Dr Watson told The Sunday Age. "Most mothers wouldn't want to have dwarfs." Dr Watson's views are based on a fierce libertarianism and personal experience. One of his...

LONDON - London's Science Museum canceled a Friday talk by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson after the co-discoverer of DNA's structure told a newspaper that Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence. James Watson provoked widespread outrage with his comments to The Sunday Times, which quoted the 79-year-old American as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really." He told the paper he hoped that everyone was equal, but added: "people...

<p>No excerpting because of copyright. The essay is at http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article3075642.ece .</p>

"...As the pendulum swings, public response has been telling. While there was vociferous outrage over James Watson’s views as expressed to The Times, few editorials have lined up in support of the realism of Neil Turok’s quest for the African Einstein. To be fair, the bar has been set quite high. Nevertheless, Turok’s aim squarely brings to the discussion forum the issue of universal Homo sapien cognitive capacity. Both Turok and Watson suggest that within our lifetimes in the next decade or so, scientific discoveries and technological measures will provide support for their divergent predictions. Who is correct? Richard Lynn...

The discoverer of the double-helix says the disease can be cured in his lifetime. He's 82. 'We should cure cancer," James Watson declares in a huff, and "we should have the courage to say that we can really do it." He adds a warning: "If we say we can't do it, we will create an atmosphere where we just let the FDA keep testing going so pitifully." The man who discovered the double helix and gave birth to the field of modern genetics is now 82 years old. But he's not close to done with his life's work. He wants...

Russia's richest man has revealed that he bought US scientist James Watson's Nobel Prize gold medal, and intends to return it to him. Steel and telecoms tycoon Alisher Usmanov said Mr Watson "deserved" the medal, and that he was "distressed" the scientist had felt forced to sell it. The medal, awarded in 1962 for the discovery of the structure of DNA, sold for $4.8m (£3m) at auction. The medal was the first Nobel Prize to be put on sale by a living recipient. The 1962 prize was awarded to Watson, along with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick, with each receiving...

It has been more than a decade since James D. Watson, a founder of modern genetics, landed in a kind of professional exile by suggesting that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than whites. In 2007, Dr. Watson, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, told a British journalist that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really.” Moreover, he added, although he wished everyone were equal, “people...

The Nobel-winning biologist has drawn global criticism with unfounded pronouncements on genetics, race and intelligence. He still thinks he’s right, a new documentary finds. It has been more than a decade since James D. Watson, a founder of modern genetics, landed in a kind of professional exile by suggesting that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than whites. In 2007, Dr. Watson, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, told a British journalist that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that...

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory revoked the honorary titles held by its longtime leader James D. Watson on Friday, describing as “unsubstantiated and reckless” his recent remarks about genetic differences in intelligence among racial groups. Dr. Watson, one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, had apologized after making similar comments to a British newspaper in 2007. At the time, he was forced to retire from his job as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, but he has retained his office there, as well as the titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R. Grace professor emeritus and honorary...

Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured. On 28 February 1953 biologists James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA - the chemical code for all life. The breakthrough revealed how genetic information is passed from one generation to the next and revolutionised biology and medicine. But in a documentary series to be screened in the UK on Channel 4, Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular...

A PIONEERING scientist's claim that gene therapy could be used to "cure stupidity" has been dismissed by Australian experts as ludicrous. James Watson, an American biologist who won a Nobel Prize for his role in unlocking the structure of DNA, has advocated the use of gene therapy to increase intelligence. In a new documentary series, Mr Watson also claims beauty could be engineered using DNA technology. But Australian experts have dismissed the idea, saying science had not yet given humans the ability to tamper with intelligence. Australian Medical Association's ethics committee chairman Dr Trevor Mudge said it was not yet...

'Use genetics to cure stupidity' February 28 2003 at 05:55PM London - James Watson, the British biologist who won a Nobel Prize for his role in unlocking the structure of DNA 50 years ago, has advocated using genetics to "cure stupidity", in a documentary television series to be broadcast next month. People of low intelligence who do not have a recognised mental disability are suffering from an inherited disorder as real as cystic fibrosis or haemophilia, Watson says in the series, according to a report in Friday's Times. In the series which starts on March 8, Watson, 75, is sceptical...

JAMES WATSON, the DNA pioneer who claimed Africans are less intelligent than whites, has been found to have 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European. An analysis of his genome shows that 16% of his genes are likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1%. The study was made possible when he allowed his genome - the map of all his genes - to be published on the internet in the interests of science. “This level is what you...

A prehistoric burial near Stonehenge long known as the “Shaman of Upton Lovell” has been identified as a woman’s, overturning a belief that shaped archaeological interpretation for more than 200 years. Ancient DNA analysis revealed that the individual buried near Stonehenge about 4,000 years ago was biologically female. The finding challenges one of Britain’s best-known prehistoric identifications and is prompting researchers to rethink the roles women held in Early Bronze Age society. Researchers examined surviving skeletal remains, including fragments of the skull, a tooth and a foot bone. DNA testing identified XX chromosomes, confirming the individual was female. The findings,...

The boy was around 14 when he joined the Continental Army. He signed his enlistment papers with an “X,” suggesting that he’d never learned to write his name. During his three-and-a-half-year military career, he marched more than 1,000 miles. When he died at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780, he was buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten for nearly 250 years. Researchers excavated the boy’s remains in 2022. Now, they’ve discovered this young soldier’s identity: His name was Private John Pumphrey, and he was one of America’s oldest John Doe cases. “As far as we knew,...