Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits
- Animals
Creative ways to help coral reefs recover
Coral reefs are under siege from threats ranging from climate change to explosives. But scientists are developing ways to rebuild reefs before they disappear.
- Animals
Tasmanian devils begin to resist infectious cancer
A deadly contagious cancer is spreading among Tasmanian devils. But the animals are evolving resistance, a new study finds.
- Life
Scientists watch germs evolve into superbugs
To study how bacteria can evolve resistance to a wide variety of drugs, scientists spread the germs on a food-filled plate the size of a foosball table. Then, they watched resistance rise.
- Agriculture
Bananas under attack: Understanding their foes
Fungal blights threaten the world’s most popular fruit. But genetic studies hint at new ways to combat some of these diseases.
- Health & Medicine
Grandparents’ diet could be a weighty issue for grandkids
Australian scientists have found that fat mice can pass on a heightened risk of obesity to their sons and grandsons.
- Genetics
Explainer: What is epigenetics?
Epigenetics is the study of molecular “switches” that turn genes on and off. Tweak those switches and there could be big health consequences.
- Agriculture
The first farmers were two groups, not one
The humans that began farming 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent may have been two cultures living side-by-side.
- Animals
Wolf species shake-up
A genetic study says red wolves and eastern wolves may really be mixtures of coyotes and gray wolves, not distinct species.
- Animals
How a moth went to the dark side
Peppered moths and some butterflies are icons of evolution. Now scientists have found a gene responsible for making them so.
- Animals
The turning of wolves into dogs may have occurred twice
The process of turning wolves into dogs, called domestication, may have occurred twice — in the East and the West — ancient DNA suggest.
- Animals
Why some frogs can survive killer fungal disease
A disease is wiping out amphibian species around the globe. New research shows how some frogs develop immunity.
- Animals
Common plant could help fight Zika virus
A teen discovered that extracts from leaves of the San Francisco plant (Codiaeum variegatum) kill larvae of the mosquito that helps spread the Zika and dengue fever viruses.
