Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Naked Mole rats are inbred [Gene Expression]

  Published: July 26, 2007, 4:44 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  Viral Epizootic reveals inbreeding depression in a habitually inbreeding mammal: Inbreeding is typically detrimental to fitness. However, some animal populations are reported to inbreed without incurring inbreeding depression, ostensibly due to past "purging" of deleterious alleles. Challenging this is the position that purging can, at best, only

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• Evolutionary parameters - migration matters! [Gene Expression]

  Published: July 27, 2007, 4:22 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  How bacteria evolve into superbugs: "Bacteria that can mutate fast will quickly adapt to harsh environments containing antibiotics. Our study showed that a high rate of immigration significantly augments the regular process of genetic mutation commonly used to explain the evolution of antibiotic resistance," said co-author Dr. Andrew Gonzalez, a

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• Paleontology & microevolution? [Gene Expression]

  Published: July 27, 2007, 4:41 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  Rapid evolution in early trilobites fueled by high variation: Webster compiled morphological data for nearly 1,000 of the 17,000 different species of trilobites, a class of marine arthropods that died out by 250 million years ago, from 49 previously published sources. By tracking different morphological features -- the number of body segments, for

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• Parental divorce is key factor in break-ups amongst their children

  Published: July 16, 2007, 12:59 pm

  Tags: Marriage, Children, Relationships, Children, Divorce, Genetics, Marriage, Research, Society, Statistics, Trends

  at other factors, such as genetics or parental substance abuse, but found that divorce itself was a key factor that lead to the higher rate in children. Brian D’Onofrio, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, said that when a host of variables are taken into

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• Genetic conflict in fish [Gene Expression]

  Published: July 28, 2007, 3:59 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  Ancient and continuing Darwinian selection on insulin-like growth factor II in placental fishes: ...We found that IGF2 is subject to positive Darwinian selection coincident with the evolution of placentation in fishes, with particularly strong selection among lineages that have evolved placentation recently. Positive selection is also detected

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• Autism and genetic accidents

  Published: July 26, 2007, 1:34 pm

  Tags: Metaphor, Cause, Genetics, Classics, Accidents, Asd, Aspergers, Autism, Children, Disasters, Dna, Education, Family, Genes, Genetics, Parenting, Pdd Nos, Train Wrecks

  Autism cases due to genetic accidents and, indeed, “freak genetic accidents,” in a Zee News (India Edition) article about the recently published study on spontaneous genetic mutations and autism. Autism compared to a freak accident? Sounds a bit in the category of referring to autism as, for example, a train wreck. To some degree, one

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• The Any Year Itch

  Published: July 25, 2007, 6:30 pm

  Tags: Sensory, Health, Genetics, Science, Asd, Aspergers, Autism, Children, Dna, Education, Family, Genes, Genetics, Health, Itch, Parenting, Pdd Nos

  discovery in genetics besides the new study on spontaneous genetic mutations an autism may not get as much attention, but could bring some real relief. Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have foun the first gene connection to the sensation of itching. Science Daily reports: The “itch gene”

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• Wednesday evenings at the genome [Discovering Biology in a Digital World]

  Published: July 30, 2007, 3:30 pm

  Tags: Genetics Amp Molecular Biology

  Debbie Nickerson talk about genetics and drugs. Read the rest of this post... Read the comments on this

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• Gene Genie #11

  Published: July 15, 2007, 2:50 am

  Tags: Genetics

  have to fear the danger in genetics more than the Vatican, as Steve Murphy at Gene Sherpa tells us. Genetic genealogy is a hot topic and a growing business these days, at least in

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• Steven Pinker on scientific genealogy [Gene Expression]

  Published: July 30, 2007, 8:28 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  Steven Pinker explores The Genealogy Craze in America in TNR. He covers most of the angles, and expands a bit out from a laser-like focus on scientific genealogy toward the relevance of relatedness in the evolution of social behavior. Read the comments on this post...

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• Martin Nowak, man of God [Gene Expression]

  Published: July 31, 2007, 1:19 am

  Tags: Genetics

  Carl Zimmer has a fascinating profile of Martin Nowak, whose work I have talked about before. Carl saves the best for last: Dr. Nowak sometimes finds his scientific colleagues astonished when he defends religion. But he believes the astonishment comes from a misunderstanding of the roles of science and religion. "Like mathematics, many

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• Copy number variation & being human [Gene Expression]

  Published: July 31, 2007, 3:28 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  Gene Duplications Give Clues to Humanness: All told, the researchers found more than 4000 genes that showed lineage-specific changes in copy number, with the numbers steadily increasing over evolutionary time. Humans, for example, only had 84 genes with increased copy numbers over those of our closet relatives. In contrast, lemurs, which have

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• Man as an instrument & eugenics [Gene Expression]

  Published: August 1, 2007, 12:45 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  There has been a lot of comment on the blogosphere about eugenics. From the Right, Ross Douthat here, here & here, from the Left Ezra Klein here, here & here, Kevin Drum here & Henry Farrell here. And from the libertarian angle the Elf here. Since a few of my posts were referenced I added a bit here & here. I think I'm pretty clear about

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• Grandfather hypothesis rejected? [Gene Expression]

  Published: August 1, 2007, 4:27 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  In biological anthropology there is a Grandmother Hypothesis as an explanation for why adult human females live so long after their reproduction ceases, and, why menopause occurs in the first place (male fertility tapers off over time, while women undergo a concerted physiological change which shuts down their ability to reproduce). The basic idea

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• Convergent evolution of lactase persistence - part n [Gene Expression]

  Published: August 3, 2007, 6:22 pm

  Tags: Genetics

  Evidence of Still-Ongoing Convergence Evolution of the Lactase Persistence T-13910 Alleles in Humans: A single-nucleotide variant, C/T-13910, located 14 kb upstream of the lactase gene (LCT), has been shown to be completely correlated with lactase persistence (LP) in northern Europeans. Here, we analyzed the background of the alleles carrying the

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