Free Republic

Close window Published online: 10 August 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060807-15 Another source of genetic variability mapped Researchers chart out insertions and deletions in the genome.Richard Van NoordenThe way that some pieces of DNA are chopped and changed within individual genomes has been mapped for the first time. The catalogue of insertions and deletions in the human genome could eventually help scientists to find treatments for diseases, tailored to the genetic makeup of individuals. We share some 97 to 99% of our DNA in common. The remaining 1 to 3% in the 'book of life', the human genome, reads differently in...

Beautiful people not only seem to get richer, live longer and float through life with greater ease than the less visually blessed, they are also changing the face of the world. Researchers have established that very attractive people are 36 per cent more likely to have daughters than sons and that the world's females are becoming better-looking than men as a result. The report, from the London School of Economics, may provide an insight into the biological forces that lead the most striking people to produce first-born daughters. It postulates that differing "evolutionary strategies" lead parents to produce the sex...

As part of an intensive effort to develop a new generation of machines that will sequence DNA at a vastly reduced cost, scientists are decoding a new human genome — that of James D. Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and the first director of the National Institutes of Health’s human genome project. Decoding a person’s genome is at present far too costly to be a feasible medical procedure. But the goal now being pursued by the N.I.H. and by several manufacturers, including the company decoding Dr. Watson’s DNA, is to drive the costs of decoding a human...

A decade or so ago, when the revolution in genetics was getting under way, the air was heady with promises. Gene tests, scientists predicted, would become an integral part of drug prescribing. No longer would patients find out too late that a drug did not work for them. No longer would they have to wait to see if they had side effects to one drug before switching to another. Tests of their genes would make all of this clear. But with the exception of a few tests for genes on certain cancer cells, the genetics revolution has not yet happened....

Jason Dallas used to think of his daredevil streak — a love of backcountry skiing, mountain bikes and fast vehicles — as "a personality thing." Then he heard that scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle had linked risk-taking behavior in mice to a gene. Those without it pranced unprotected along a steel beam instead of huddling in safety like the other mice. Now Mr. Dallas, a chef in Seattle, is convinced he has a genetic predisposition for risk-taking, a conclusion the researchers say is not unwarranted, since they believe similar variations in human genes can explain...

A large number of mice died unexpectedly in a test of a new technique for inactivating genes that has been widely proclaimed a breakthrough, scientists are reporting today. The finding could give rise to new caution about the technique, called RNA interference, which is already widely used in laboratory experiments and is starting to be tested in people as a means of treating diseases by silencing the genes that cause them. But Dr. Mark A. Kay and colleagues at the Stanford University School of Medicine report today in the journal Nature that the technique, also called RNAi for short, caused...

A sperm donor in Michigan passed a rare and serious genetic disease to five children born to four couples, doctors are reporting today. The doctor who discovered the cases said that all four couples were clients of the same sperm bank. That bank, the doctor added, assured him that it had discarded its remaining samples from the man and had told him he could no longer be a donor. It is not known how many children the donor had fathered, whether he knew he carried the disease before he donated sperm, or whether the bank had informed him of his...

For three billion years, life on earth consisted of single-celled organisms like bacteria or algae. Only 600 million years ago did evolution hit on a system for making multicellular organisms like animals and plants. The key to the system is to give the cells that make up an organism a variety of different identities so that they can perform many different roles. So even though all the cells carry the same genome, each type of cell must be granted access to only a few of the genes in the genome, with all the others permanently denied to it. People, for...

Researchers have made progress in understanding how a variant gene linked to schizophrenia may exert its influence in the brain. The findings are tentative but, if confirmed, could yield deep insights into the biological basis of the disease. The gene, called neuregulin-1, was first implicated in schizophrenia in 2002 by DeCode Genetics, a Reykjavik company that looks for the genetic roots of common diseases... But how the variant form of the gene contributed to the disease was far from clear, in part because even the normal gene's function is far from understood. A team led by Amanda J. Law of...

HURA, Israel — In a sky blue bedroom they share but rarely leave, a young sister and brother lie in twin beds that swallow up their small motionless bodies, victims of a genetic disease so rare it does not even have a name. Moshira, 9, and Salame, 8, who began life as apparently healthy babies, fell into vegetative states after their first birthdays. Now their dark eyes stare enormous and uncomprehending into the stillness of their room. The silence is broken only by the boy's sputtering breaths and the flopping noise his sister's atrophied legs make when they fall, like...

In 1965, when her 10-month-old son, David, started having seizures, Joan Stokes's excitement at being a first-time mother gave way to terror. "I couldn't imagine what was wrong," she said. The pediatrician was equally baffled. David's condition was not a result of a bacterial infection — it failed to respond to antibiotics — and tests for an array of common genetic disorders came back negative. It was not until Ms. Stokes began discussing David's illness with her mother, her cousins and other relatives that she realized she belonged to a seemingly cursed lineage. "I had a brother that died in...

Listen more kindly to the New York Irishmen who assure you that the blood of early Irish kings flows in their veins. At least 2 percent of the time, they are telling the truth, according to a new genetic survey. The survey not only bolsters the bragging rights of some Irishmen claiming a proud heritage but also provides evidence of the existence of Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish high king of the fifth century A.D. regarded by some historians as more legend than real. The survey shows that 20 percent of men in northwestern Ireland carry a distinctive...

Researchers have now decoded the dog genome to a high degree of accuracy, allowing deep insights into the evolutionary history not only of Canis familiaris but also of its devoted companion species, Homo sapiens. The dog whose genome has been sequenced is Tasha, a female boxer, said Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, a biologist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., who led a large group of colleagues in the DNA sequencing effort. Their findings are reported in today's issue of the journal Nature. The world's dog population numbers some 400 million, divided into some 350 breeds. The researchers chose to sequence Tasha's...

BERKELEY, Calif., July 8 (UPI) -- California researchers found genes are more important than exercise in determining response to cholesterol. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute conducted a study to compare the effects of a high-fat diet and of exercise. Paul Williams gave diets that were either high or low in fat to 28 pairs of identical male twins -- one twin a vigorous exerciser, the other a comparative couch potato. For six weeks the twins ate either a high-fat diet -- 40 percent of its calories from fat,...

Identical twins possess exactly the same set of genes. Yet as they grow older, they may begin to display subtle differences. They may start to look different, develop different diseases or slide into different personalities. Women who are identical twins may differ in their fertility or in the age at which they reach menopause. These discrepancies are usually attributed to ill-defined differences in environment. But a whole new level of explanation has been opened up by a genetic survey showing that identical twins, as they grow older, differ increasingly in what is known as their epigenome. The term refers to...

Poisons may pass down generations Chemicals can change the way genes work Toxic chemicals that poisoned your great-grandparents may also damage your health, US research suggests. A team from Washington State University has produced evidence that some inherited diseases may be caused by poisons polluting the womb. Research on rats indicates man-made environmental poisons may alter genetic activity, giving rise to diseases that pass down at least four generations. The research is published in the journal Science. Poisons may pass down generations Toxic chemicals that poisoned your great-grandparents may also damage your health, US research suggests. A team from Washington...

In what could prove to be one of the first major drugs to emerge from the human genome project, a chemical that singles out a specific gene thought to increase the risk of heart attacks has shown promising results in a preliminary test. Last year DeCode Genetics, a gene-finding company in Reykjavik, Iceland, discovered among Icelanders a variant gene that doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke. Because a drug that inhibited the gene had been developed, although for a different purpose, DeCode was able to begin a clinical trial almost immediately. Results of the trial, published today in...

There was nothing about the appearance of the young woman who stood up to speak at Rahat's new community center that hinted at the heretical statement she was about to make. "I'm five months pregnant, with a daughter, and already they're trying to fix her up with husbands," she said. "But I won't have my daughter marry a cousin." Like most of the 150 women and teenage girls in the hall, the speaker's head was covered with a cloth and she wore a long dress. But her statement reflected a new state of mind that has been infiltrating Bedouin society...

n a startling discovery, geneticists at Purdue University say they have found plants that possess a corrected version of a defective gene inherited from both their parents, as if some handy backup copy with the right version had been made in the grandparents' generation or earlier. The finding implies that some organisms may contain a cryptic backup copy of their genome that bypasses the usual mechanisms of heredity. If confirmed, it would represent an unprecedented exception to the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel in the 19th century. Equally surprising, the cryptic genome appears not to be made of...

Scientists say they have identified a genetic variation that substantially raises the risk of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of severe vision loss in the elderly. The finding, being reported independently by three separate research groups, sheds light on the cause of the disease and could provide clues to how to develop treatments or strategies to prevent the condition. The genetic variation "explains a lot of the risk," said Dr. Albert O. Edwards, an ophthalmology researcher in Dallas who led of one of the studies. "There's a primary biological explanation for A.M.D. now. It gives you some obvious avenues...