HS-LS3-2
Make and defend a claim based on evidence that inheritable genetic variations may result from: (1) new genetic combinations through meiosis, (2) viable errors occurring during replication, and/or (3) mutations caused by environmental factors.
- Microbes
Explainer: Virus variants and strains
When viruses become more infectious or better able to survive the body’s immune system, they become a type of variant known as a strain.
- Health & Medicine
COVID-19 can infect kids — and risks sickening some severely
Not all are equally impacted. Even among supposedly low risk groups, concerns intensify as the super-contagious delta variant sweeps across the globe.
- Genetics
Just a tiny share of the DNA in us is unique to humans
Some of these tweaks to DNA, however, may have played a role in brain evolution.
- Health & Medicine
One key change may have helped the coronavirus become a global menace
One key mutation may have helped the virus behind COVID-19 better infect human cells.
- Life
These rabbits can’t hop. A gene defect makes them do handstands
Mutations in a gene that helps nerve cells work properly rob rabbits of their ability to hop. Instead, the animals use their front paws to move.
- Animals
Science and Indigenous history team up to help spirit bears
When scientists and Indigenous people work together, their efforts can benefit bears and people.
- Health & Medicine
Bringing COVID-19 vaccines to much of world is hard
The price of not vaccinating nearly everyone across the world could be a longer pandemic and more troubling variants of the new coronavirus.
- Humans
By not including everyone, genome science has blind spots
Little diversity in genetic databases makes precision medicine hard for many. One historian proposes a solution, but some scientists doubt it’ll work.
- Health & Medicine
Some young adults will volunteer to get COVID-19 for science
Researchers will soon give some healthy people the new coronavirus. Their young volunteers have agreed to get sick to speed coronavirus research.
- Animals
How do you build a centaur?
A centaur has the torso of a human and the body of a horse. It may sound cool, but it wouldn’t work very well.
- Space
Space travel may harm health by damaging cells’ powerhouses
Biochemical changes after going to space suggest that harm to cells’ energy-producing structures, called mitochondria, could explain astronauts’ health issues.
- Humans
Some identical twins don’t have the exact same DNA
Identical twins may not be exactly identical. Mutations may arise early in development that account for tiny genetic differences between siblings.
