Genetics

Somewhere in the middle of a long health survey, a question asks whether you agree that you are talkative. A few pages later, whether you worry a lot. A few pages after that, whether you finish what…

A team led from University College Dublin has sequenced 21 ancient genomes of sheeppox virus, a disease of sheep, several of them recovered from medieval parchment, the animal skin that manuscripts…

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and collaborating labs report that macrophages, the immune cells that engulf pathogens, produce messenger RNAs stitched together from two separate genes, and…

Researchers have identified 36 genes in which rare mutations sharply increase the risk of obsessive-compulsive disorder and chronic tic disorders, up from four previously known. The study was…

Researchers have assembled near-complete genomes for eight closely related species of Myotis bats and report that the group adapts to DNA viruses and to RNA viruses in two different ways, in a paper…

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have mapped the protein partners of 100 genes strongly associated with autism spectrum disorder and report more than 1,800 interactions…

A bacterium has no nervous system and no hormones, and it still knows when it is drowning in sodium. Part of how it knows is a piece of its own messenger RNA, folded into a pocket that closes around…

All 15 DNA sequences that researchers designed with neural networks switched a gene on in the tissue they were meant for when tested in mouse embryos, according to a paper published Aug. 25 in Nature…

A study published Aug. 19 in Science Advances places more than 5,800 animal genomes on a single map and reports that chromosomes rearrange along a limited set of routes that cannot be retraced,…

A method published Aug. 20 in Nature Genetics returns a probability for each of four categories at once: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, or none of the three. Genetic risk scores…

In the Botanical Garden of the University of Potsdam grows a South African plant called Wachendorfia thyrsiflora, the butterfly lily. Look into one of its yellow flowers and you find a small…

Ancient DNA is a discipline built on luck. It survives best in cold, dry, stable ground, which is why so much of what we know about deep human history comes from Europe and northern Asia. Japan, warm…