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Researchers have found that Neanderthals passed on a lot more traits than you might think including skin tone, hair colour, sleeping patterns and even mood. Around 2% of the DNA of non-African people is Neanderthal, which means that inevitably there were always going to be some traits that were passed down. Until now though, it [...]
James Longman/BBC News In the battle to find what causes mental illness, scientists are increasingly looking at genetic factors. For James Longman - whose father killed himself after suffering from schizophrenia - it's a very personal question. I'm often told I look like my dad, that I have his mannerisms and some of [...]
https://youtu.be/Nd7ffDXrw5U Everybody reacts to emotions differently. There are so many different ways that influence how one can experience emotions, and a new study suggests that DNA may be one of them. In a new study about human genetics, it was found that the "happiness gene" may affect how people experience happiness. For the very [...]
ktsimage/iStockphoto About eight percent of our DNA is viral in origin: remnants of ancient battles between infectious viruses and our ancestors. These so-called endogenous viruses are often perceived as a mere oddity with no clear biological significance. But a new study by scientists at the University of Utah School of Medicine shows that [...]
imgarcade.com For much of the history of brain science, the word “engram” has been a bit of a catch-all term, referring to the hypothetical physical incarnation of memory. If this turned out to be a storm of electrical activity, then that’s what the engram would be; if it turned out that networks of physical neurons were the [...]
Flickr/ Credit: Ann Larie Valentine You might expect that neighboring neurons would be closely related to one another, or that entire regions would arise from the same ancestral cells. But that’s not the case. Christopher Walsh from Boston Children's Hospital has now shown that in one region, the prefrontal cortex, any given neuron [...]
Ninety-seven healthy girls, ages 10 to 14, had saliva DNA samples taken. About half of them had moms with histories of depression, and about half had moms who did not. None of the girls had histories of depression. (1)The girls whose moms had suffered depression had significant reductions in the length of their telomeres. We [...]
Spending less time on the sofa lengthens "telomeres"-the caps on chromosomes which protect the genetic code inside. The best anti-ageing technique could be standing up, scientists believe, after discovering that spending more time on two feet protects DNA. A study found that too much sitting down shortens telomeres, the protective caps which sit at the [...]
The largest study of its kind has shown that smoking during pregnancy could cause epigenetic changes in the fetus, resulting in birth defects and health problems later in life. Christina Markunas of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and her colleagues have found that newborn children of mothers who smoked while pregnant are more [...]
You may think you're better at reading than you are at math (or vice versa#, but new research suggests you're probably equally good #or bad) at both. The reason: The genes that determine a person's ability to tackle one subject influence their aptitude at the other, accounting for about half of a person's overall ability. [...]
