Genetics & Molecular Biology

A study of 90,000 people has uncovered new genetic variants that influence fat mass, weight and risk of obesity. The variants act in addition to the recently described variants of the FTO gene:…

We go back a long way with herpesviruses. Our evolutionary line has been living with these genomic parasites for more than 100 million years, and today herpesviruses infect nearly all humans, as…

Each copy of the human genome consists of about 3,200,000,000 base pairs, and includes about 500,000 repeats of the LINE-1 transposable element (a LINE) and twice as many copies of Alu (a SINE), as…

A baby is twice as likely to be born bottom first if either or both the parents were themselves breech deliveries, according to a study published ahead of print on bmj.com. The results suggest genes…

You thought psychological counselling for pets was the last word in over-indulgent animal concern? Not so. Thanks to Dr. Susan Nelson, a veterinarian at Kansas State University, you can get a blood…

If you had one hundred unlabeled DNA samples, taken from people all around the world, could you use that DNA to determine where the original donors came from? With major improvements in genotyping…

Genome-wide association studies are increasingly widely used to discover genetic variations that increase the risk of common diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Intuitively they're quite…

There's a class war brewing and it involves DNA. Only the wealthy can afford what is, now, around $350,000 for the kind of sequencing that can tell you if you have a disease-risk gene that can be…

Happiness in life is as much down to having the right genetic mix as it is to personal circumstances according to a recent study. Psychologists at the University of Edinburgh working with researchers…

Dr. Cynthia Bulik, William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders at the University of North Carolina, spoke forcefully at yesterday's US Congressional Briefing…