Genetics
- Genetics
Your DNA is an open book — but can’t yet be fully read
There are many companies that offer to read your DNA. But be prepared: They cannot yet fulfill all those promises you read in their ads.
- Animals
Living Mysteries: Meet Earth’s simplest animal
Trichoplax is the simplest animal on Earth. It has no mouth, stomach or brain. Yet it can teach how these and other organs evolved.
- Genetics
Scientists recruit bloodsucking leeches as research assistants
By analyzing a slimy, bloodsucking leech’s last meal, scientists can identify which animals had been living near it.
- Genetics
Explainer: DNA hunters
Snippets of DNA can be left behind by a passing organism. Some researchers now act as wildlife detectives to identify the sources of such cast-off DNA.
- Genetics
Can DNA editing save endangered species?
Scientists may be able to help endangered species by changing the genes of a whole population of wild animals. But some question whether that is wise.
- Plants
Increasingly, chocolate-makers turn to science
Chocolate is delicious and may even have health benefits. To make sure there’s enough to go around, scientists are growing heartier cacao trees.
- Agriculture
How to grow a cacao tree in a hurry
Chocolate is made from the pods of the cacao tree. To reproduce this plant quickly for research, scientists use clones.
- Health & Medicine
Janet’s chocolate mousse pie
The top two ingredients — dark chocolate and tofu — both have a reputation for being healthy. The good news for those who don’t like tofu: You can’t taste it in this pie. It just tastes like a very rich, thick chocolate mousse.
- Genetics
New tools can fix genes one letter at a time
New tools can edit the genome one letter at a time, correcting common errors that lead to disease.
- Life
Doctors repair skin of boy dying from ‘butterfly’ disease
Researchers fixed a genetic defect, then replaced about 80 percent of a child’s skin. This essentially cured the boy’s life-threatening disease.
- Genetics
Small genetic accident made Zika more dangerous
A new study finds that a tiny mutation made the Zika virus more dangerous, by helping it kill cells in the fetal brain.
- Genetics
Explainer: Why scientists sometimes ‘knock out’ genes
How do we learn what a particular molecule does in the body? To find out, scientists often 'knock out' the gene that makes it. Here’s how.
