Genetics
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GeneticsOwww! The science of pain
No one likes pain, but it keeps us alive. That’s why scientists want to learn how best to coexist with this complicated and still somewhat mysterious sensation.
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GeneticsNewfound DNA ‘enhancer’ behind many natural blonds
Some snippets of DNA other than genes play a role in giving some people of European a golden crown of hair.
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MicrobesA success for designer life
Synthetic biologists are scientists who create custom organisms in the lab. Their efforts have just taken a big step forward. They have created the first lab-made yeast chromosome. The advance could lead to entirely synthetic organisms customized to produce food, fuel or medicine.
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GeneticsWhere Native Americans come from
All tribes seem to derive from the same Asian roots, DNA indicates.
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GeneticsBlue eyes in the Stone Age
Genes from an ancient skeleton suggest that dark-skinned people may have been the first to evolve blue eyes.
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GeneticsAncient DNA sparks new mystery
DNA from a 400,000-year-old leg bone found in Spain is by far the oldest recovered from pre-human ancestors. It also shows an unexpected link to later, Asian ‘kin.’
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Computing
Genetic memory
DNA is a chemical blueprint that effectively instructs cells on how to work.
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Health & Medicine
Tomatoes’ tasteless green gene
The tomatoes your great-grandparents ate probably tasted little like the ones you eat today. The fruit used to have more flavor. A lot more flavor. In fact, tomatoes “were once so flavorful that you could take one in your hand and eat it straight away just like we regularly eat apples or peaches,” according to plant scientist Alan Bennett. He belongs to a team of international scientists who now think they know one reason why the fruit has lost so much flavor. Although some unripe tomatoes have a dark green patch near the stem, farmers prefer that their unripe tomatoes are the same shade of green all over. The consistent coloring makes it easier for them to know when the fruit should be picked.