Living World / Genetics

Big Picture: The Banks That Prevent—Rather Than Cause—Global Crises

Seed banks put some much-needed wild vigor back into today's specialized varieties, protecting critical crops from being wiped out. 11.20.2009

The Sea Change That's Challenging Biology's Central Dogma

For decades, RNA was seen as a simple slave to DNA. Newer research shows it has an active and critical role in every disease from Alzheimer's to cancer. 11.03.2009

The Psychology of Genetic Testing

Even geneticist Tara Matise was curious about—but not spooked by—having her genetic palm read. 09.23.2009

Researchers Discover a DNA Dimmer

A chance discovery reveals a way to precisely control the activity of a gene. 06.01.2009

The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains

A broken symmetry from our evolutionary heritage is part of what makes us human. 04.15.2009

Promising Antibiotic Could Spawn the Next Superbug

Bacteria-killing viruses called bacteriophages can speed up pathogen evolution by a billion years. 03.28.2009

The Best New Science Books

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Area 51, modern life vs human nature, and more 02.20.2009

DNA Agrees With All the Other Science: Darwin Was Right

Molecular biologist Sean Carroll shows how evolution happens, one snippet of DNA at a time 02.19.2009

Darwin's Dystopias: Ghastly Visions Inspired by Evolution

A new collection of art shows how one scientist shocked the world. 02.12.2009

Evolution by Intelligent Design

Bioengineers will likely control the future of humans as a species. 02.02.2009

Is That a Dead Mouse You're Cloning?

Researchers clone living pups from long-dead, frozen rodents. 01.12.2009

The Year in Genetics

Musical genes, the platypus as animal grab-bag, cracking the anthrax case, and more. 12.27.2008

What is This? The Innards of a Daisy?

It's not a flower, but it does get its nice looks from photosynthesis. 12.23.2008

#8: Cavemen: They're Just Like Us

Neanderthals were a sophisticated bunch, according to new research. 12.21.2008

#9: Your Genome, Now Available for a (Relative) Discount

The first cost around $1 million; now, it's more like $200,000. 12.21.2008

#17: Cell Reprogramming Could Help Cure Diabetes—and Other Diseases

Stem-cell guru says reprogramming adult cells might actually work better. 12.19.2008

#29: A New Law Bans Genetic Discrimination

After over a decade, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act becomes law. 12.17.2008

#32: DNA Sleuthing Cracks the Anthrax Case

Microbial forensics seems to have solved an infamous whodunnit. 12.16.2008

#41: A Synthetic Genome Is Built From Scratch

The art of recreating an entire bacterial genome. 12.14.2008

#42: Geneticists Uncover the Origin of Blue Eyes

A single genetic mutation gives life to baby blues. 12.14.2008

#52: Musical Ability Seems to Be 50 Percent Genetic

Beethovens of the world may have innate advantages like better signaling from inner-ear hair cells. 12.12.2008

#53: Bizarre Aquatic Creatures Are Secretly "Lesbian Necrophiliacs"

Asexual bdelloids aren't really asexual after all. 12.12.2008

#63: Lizardlike Tuatara Sets a Speed Record for DNA Change

The reptile undergoes rapid molecular evolution but is largely unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs. 12.10.2008

#90: The Platypus Genome Is a Mash-Up of Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals

One animal, three completely different ancestors. 12.07.2008

#98: You're More Like a Sponge Than a Comb Jelly

A gelatinous zooplankton can now trace its roots back to the world's first life. 12.04.2008

20 Best Brains Under 40

Young innovators are changing everything from theoretical mathematics to cancer therapy. 11.20.2008

The Jiffy Lube of Genome Decoding

A new company promises to map your DNA while-U-wait—for only a few hundred bucks. 09.20.2008

Robert Lanza

08.31.2008

How Much Can You Learn From a Home DNA Test?

One reporter has her DNA analyzed and finds that genetic testing isn't an exact science. 08.20.2008

The History of Humans, Written in One Person's DNA

One reporter's genetic test hints at how people colonized the entire world. 08.20.2008

The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

A new book explores what we still don't know about science. 08.20.2008

Will Gene Therapy Destroy Sports?

A new age of biotechnology promises bigger, faster, better bodies—and no existing tests will catch it. 08.05.2008

What is This? Video Game Soccer Balls?

Not quite, but you will find plenty in a locker room. 07.03.2008

Computers See Diseases Written All Over Your Face

Analysis of facial features can reveal genetic disorders. 02.27.2008

DNA Pollution May Be Spawning Killer Microbes

Rogue genetic snippets spread antibiotic resistance all over the environment. 02.14.2008

10. T. Rex Time Machine

Iconoclast Mary Schweitzer isolates 68-million-year-old proteins and finally proves the kinship of dinosaurs and chickens. 12.12.2007

9. The Genome Turns Personal

With individual sequencing, medicine may soon be custom-tailored to your own DNA. 12.12.2007

Bacteria Invade Genomes, Not Just Bodies

A bacterial genome sets up shop right in a fruit fly's DNA. 12.07.2007

Scientist of the Year Notable: Elizabeth Blackburn

Her genetic explorations could lead to revolutionary treatments for cancer. 12.06.2007

Mapping the Mammal Takeover

A family tree illustrates the rise and diversification of furry animals. 11.23.2007

Halloween Science: Bacteria of the Living Dead

Chop up their DNA and the buggers still keep comin' back to life. 10.31.2007

The Goldilocks Method for Curing Autism

Combining two bad mutant genes produces neurons that're just right. 08.23.2007

Did T. Rex Taste Like Chicken?

Protein and DNA analyses cement the dinosaur-bird link. 08.01.2007

How to Hunt People

DNA forensics puts poachers in the crosshairs. 07.23.2007

Exercise Gene

Exercise activates a gene that turns rats into fat-burning machines. 06.25.2007

Health FAQs: Diet and Genetics

If protein, fat, and carbs are bad, what do you eat? 06.06.2007

The Real Story on Gay Genes

Homing in on the science of homosexuality—and sexuality itself 06.05.2007

Message in a Bacterium

Researchers use DNA as a post-human time capsule. 06.04.2007

Ironman 2.0

Biologists enhance endurance with genetically altered muscles. 05.30.2007

Tiny Troublemaker, Giant Genome

A one-celled vaginal parasite sports more genes than its human host. 05.08.2007

Is There a Genetic Basis to Race After All?

It may not be a question of which genes, but how they behave. 05.07.2007

How to Grow a New Limb

Starfish can grow new arms. Why can't we? 04.24.2007

Eye Color Explained

Everything you know is wrong. 03.13.2007

The Discover Interview: Francis Collins

Top geneticist is a devout Christian and true believer in stem cell research. 02.20.2007

Bye-Bye, Sonic Hedgehog

Geneticists spike some of their really wacky gene names. 02.01.2007

The Top 6 Genetics Stories of 2006

Heart-healthy bacon, errata for the genetic rulebook, first tree genome sequenced, and more 01.02.2007

Mother's Littlest Helper

Viruses are essential to the developing fetus. 12.01.2006

DNA Is Not Destiny

The new science of epigenetics rewrites the rules of disease, heredity, and identity. 11.22.2006

Your Genome Is Biased

Researchers find a full 12,000 genes that act differently in male and female mice, a finding that could lead to sex-specific medicine. 10.06.2006

Will We Ever Clone a Caveman?

The first complete Neanderthal skeleton shows how our species has evolved. 09.01.2006

Reasonable Doubt

Questions about the forensic infallibility of DNA emerge even as police begin to use it to profile suspect by race. 07.29.2006

No-Mow Grass

Scientists say a perfect green lawn that never needs mowing may soon become a reality. 07.03.2006

Osteoporosis and Bears

Bears may hold the secret to keeping our bones healthy. 06.20.2006

A Mother's Touch

Good parents can change children's DNA. 05.12.2006

Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery

When this shy paleontologist found soft, fresh-looking tissue inside a T.rex femur, she erased a line between past and present. Then all hell broke loose 04.27.2006

The 2% Difference

Now that scientists have decoded the chimpanzee genome, we know that 98 percent of our DNA is the same. So how can we be so different? 04.04.2006

Who's Your Daddy?

Don't count on DNA testing to tell you. 04.02.2006

Educator's Guide

Viruses are the ultimate parasites. Lacking the cellular machinery required to produce additional viruses, they hijack the biochemical processes of the cells they infect. Once infected, a cell uses its own organelles to produce viral particles, which in most cases leads to the infected cell's death. With the discovery of Mimivirus, it now appears that viruses may have developed their simplistic form and replication strategy early on in the evolution of life, not as evolutionary latecomers that exploited a niche in host diversity. 02.07.2006

A Doctor's Best Friend

Dog genome mapped. 12.12.2005

Horse Sense

12.01.2005

Who's Your Daddy?

Who's Your Daddy? 11.22.2005

Lost in the Wave

A new scientific mystery: Why haven't sophisticated DNA techniques identified more of the dead killed in last year's tsunami?And what will it mean for New Orleans? 11.22.2005

Paleontology

New discoveries hint there's a lot more in fossil bones than we thought 10.24.2005

Sex

For better or worse, sex chromosomes are linked to human intelligence 10.24.2005

Nutrition

Nutritional genomics promises to make diets truly personal 10.24.2005

X

07.24.2005

Human, Study Thyself

Race has been a surrogate for biology. We don't have that luxury anymore 03.31.2005

Think Tank

Great scientists discuss the breakthroughs of the last quarter century—and the next 02.06.2005

Discover Dialogue: Geneticist Craig Venter

We don't have enough scientists on the planet, enough money, and enough time using traditional methods to understand the millions of genes we're uncovering 12.03.2004

Study the Clones First

Twin research is finally beginning to reveal what really makes us tick 08.02.2004

Ask Discover

06.27.2004

Dogs of Rarotonga

On a remote Pacific island, the local strays look a lot like their earliest ancestors. Domestication, they show, has its share of evolutionary side effects 06.26.2004

Let There Be Borax

05.29.2004

Discover Dialogue: Sydney Brenner

The problem of biology is not to stand aghast at the complexity but to conquer it’ 04.21.2004

Monsters on Ice

Gold-mining techniques in the Yukon offer up fresh DNA from the Ice Age 03.28.2004

The Gene That Made Us Human

Scientists decode a critical gene that may have led to the evolution of our big brains 03.04.2004

Biology

01.02.2004

Genetics

01.02.2004

A Sixth Sense for Similarity

A lizard's multiple hues provide genetic cues. 09.26.2003

More Gene Than Junk

09.01.2003

Go Ahead, Kiss Your Cousin

Heck, marry her if you want to 08.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Are you ready for computers that speed up the process of evolution and teach themselves to think? 08.01.2003

Discover Dialogue: Geneticist James Watson

James Watson's solution: 'Just let all the genetic decisions be made by women' 07.01.2003

Testing Your Future

Every state in the country requires that infants be tested for a list of obscure diseases. Before long, some states could move on to DNA testing of all newborns. Now is the time to decide a critical question: How much do we want to know and when do we want to know it? 07.01.2003

The Biology of . . . Sunscreen

Nature teaches biologists how to beat back the sun and repair what it damages 06.01.2003

Where Do We Come From?

A new generation of DNA genealogists stand ready to unearth our ancestors. We may not like what they find 05.01.2003

The Genetics of . . . Dogs

Biologists say our champion purebreds could use some reverse engineering 04.01.2003

Genetics

01.01.2003

Why Science Must Adapt to Women

An elite survivor assesses the hidden costs of exclusion 11.01.2002

The Biology of . . . Appetite

Science zooms in on why people eat too much 09.01.2002

Cetacean Scatology

08.01.2002

But a Dodo Doesn't

07.01.2002

Leaping Viruses

07.01.2002

Life's Big Leap

05.01.2002

Bad Genes, Good Drugs

Wondering what happened to all that knowledge we got from mapping the human genome? It launched a new race to identify the genes that give us diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, and Alzheimer's. The winner gets to make remarkable new medicines 04.01.2002

Genetics

Year In Science 01.13.2002

Spliced Ham, The Cleaner Breakfast Meat

Genetically engineered pigs do less harm to the environment. 12.01.2001

Genes in Microgravity

Being in space can give cells regenerative powers. 09.01.2001

The Genetic Mystery of Music

Does a mother's lullaby give an infant a better chance for survival? 08.01.2001

Nature's Detangler

07.01.2001

End of Ascent

05.01.2001

Alligators Live Forever

Everything you need to know about survival you can learn from an 05.01.2001

How Simple Is Life?

Researchers strips genes from the simplest bacterium to create a life-form nature never thought of. 04.01.2001

Works in Progress

Finally, some genetic tinkering we can really appreciate 04.01.2001

Wild Cats in Carolina

Is the Carnivore Preservation Trust creating a genetic future for threatened species—or genetic junk? 03.01.2001

A Garden of Genomes

03.01.2001

The Year of the Genome

The End of a Great Mystery—The Real Beginning of Biology 01.01.2001

Digging for Cures

12.01.2000

Matzo-Ball Medicine

12.01.2000

Odor Engineers

Showy plants usually don't smell good, and that's a problem for pollination. 10.01.2000

Works in Progress

With the help of archaeobotany, the Taj Mahal's evening garden may bloom yet again 07.01.2000

Fears for Ears

07.01.2000

Aping Culture

Chimpanzees speak in dialects, invent odd grooming styles, and drum better than most kids in marching bands. So what's left to separate them from us? 05.01.2000

Landlubber Genes

05.01.2000

Gene-ius Computer

04.01.2000

Y So Small?

03.01.2000

Transposons

So-called junk DNA proves its worth: First in corn, now in creatures like us 12.01.1999

The Natural History of Art

Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder. It's embedded in our genes 11.01.1999

The Frozen Zoo

10.01.1999

Pheromone Follies

09.01.1999

Vital Signs

The wrong diagnosis tears a family apart 09.01.1999

Goodbye Dolly

08.01.1999

Eric Juengst

02.01.1999

The Genes of 1998

Another year brings us many, many genes closer to understanding the human genetic endowment. Here are a notable few: 01.01.1999

The Ur-Plant

DNA analysis reveals the identity of the first plants. 11.01.1998

The Code Breaker

Instead of patiently unraveling life's secrets gene by gene, we can now read them at breakneck speed—thanks in great part to an ingenious, admired, despised, once aimless and now wealthy biologist named Craig Venter. 05.01.1998

Coils of Time

It's not easy studying the nautilus, a creature that lurks in the depths of the ocean and emerges only at night to prowl the coral reefs. But the rewards are great: discovering just how old a living fossil can be. 03.01.1998

The Year in Science: Evolution 1997

Ancient History 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Genetics 1997

MY HEART I GOT FROM DADDY 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Genetics 1997

Loner Mice 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Genetics 1997

The Genes of 1997 01.01.1998

Glowing Green Rodents

An unsuccessful experiment yeilds fluorescent mice. 12.01.1997

The Corn War

The true origin of corn is a question that's been debated for decades. Now a maverick geneticist says she may have the answer. But to get anyone to listen to her, she has to join a long-running academic food fight. 12.01.1997

Coral Colors

11.01.1997

Y?

Cheer up, guys. Your favorite chromosome is turning out to be not just an X with something missing. It's a sperm-producing powerhouse. 11.01.1997

Buff Rodents

Knocking out a gene endows mice with an unusually muscular physique. 10.01.1997

Island Africa

Genetic analysis reveals relationships between very different looking animals. 10.01.1997

Portrait of a Gene Guy

When it comes to questions of human behavior, Dean Hamer, big-gene hunter, is sure he's got the answers. 10.01.1997

The Cyclops Gene

05.01.1997

Priestly Genes

Digging into DNA confirms the oral tradition of an ancient priestly lineage. 04.01.1997

Testosterone Rules

It takes more than just a hormone to make a fellow's trigger fish itch. 03.01.1997

Dr. Tinkertoy

DNA is more than the storehouse of life's secrets, it's also a marvelous construction toy. 02.01.1997

The Worst Worm

01.01.1997

Going MFISHing

01.01.1997

Archae Tells All

Genetic testing reveals our long-lost cousins thriving in some of the most extreme environments on Earth. 01.01.1997

Patent Medicine

01.01.1997

Bugs Is More Like Us

Rabbits may be more closely related to humans than rodents. 01.01.1997

Natural Detours

10.01.1996

Creating the Creators

If creation demands a visionary creator, then how does blind evolution manage to build such splendid new things as ourselves? 10.01.1996

First, Kill the Babies

In the fierce evolutionary battle to pass on one's genes, says one controversial hypothesis, everyone else is a potential competitor--even the infants. 09.01.1996

Secrets in a Fly's Eye

How does a muddled mass of cells in a pale, witless maggot transform itself into the glittering, well-ordered crystal of an adult fly's eye? With the aid of mutants an monsters, biologists are learning the answer. 07.01.1996

Saami I Am Not

05.01.1996

Out of Indonesia

02.01.1996

Conversations in a Cell

Stuart Schreiber is discovering just how a cell talks with the outside world. 02.01.1996

Headless

Lacking a single gene, mice are born without heads. 01.01.1996

From Fin to Hand

01.01.1996

Life Takes Backbone

12.01.1995

First Cell

To most who search for life's origins, genes are everything. But as David Deamer keeps reminding them, without a container for those genes, there can be no life. 11.01.1995

Dr. Darwin

With a nod to evolution's god, physicians are looking at illness through the lens of natural selection to find out why we get sick and what we can do about it. 10.01.1995

A Garden of Mutants

Flowers sprang up suddenly 150 million years ago, and no one knows how. But Elliot Meyerowitz hopes to find out, with a private collection of monster blooms. 08.01.1995

Unfortunate Drift

06.01.1995

Dead End

06.01.1995

Kim's Coils

Biochemist Peter Kim knew that proteins are a twisted lot. But only recently has he learned just how convoluted their path, and purpose, can be. 06.01.1995

Whither the Y?

The price of making a man is an ever shrinking chromosomal claim to fame. 02.01.1995

Violence, Genes, and Prejudice

Can genes make one person more likely to act violently than another? Can the question even be asked in a country where violence--in many people's eyes--has come to wear a young black face? 11.01.1994

Terms of Estrangement

Race is small but volatile word. It lacks a clear definition or scientific purpose. Yet it persists. Not only in the lingo of the streets but in the language of the laboratory. 11.01.1994

The Skin We're In

We humans are mesmerized by melanin, the pigment that gives color to our skin, but almost always for quite the wrong reasons. 11.01.1994

End of the Rainbow

The leaders of the human genome diversity project wanted to find a way to celebrate and preserve our genetic differences. Now they're being called racists. 11.01.1994

The Geometer of Race

In the eighteenth century a disastrous shift occurred in the way Westerners perceived races. The man responsible was Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, one of the least racist thinkers of his day. 11.01.1994

Married to the Molecule

Caltech chemist Jacqueline Barton has found the perfect match for her elegantly designed little metal molecules--in the tangled embrance of DNA. 10.01.1994

Unnatural Acts

08.01.1993

A Gem of a Gene

06.01.1993

Molding the Metabolism

After hours, a physicist at Los Alamos is reinventing life's assembly line, molecule by molecule. 08.01.1992

Stolen Heirlooms

04.01.1992