DNA news stories on Newser

Islanders' Blond Hair Is Genetic Quirk

Dustin Lushing — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:50:08 CDT

A peculiar pairing of dark skin and blond hair in the native population of the Solomon Islands is due to a unique gene and not, as previously thought, the intermingling of Europeans with the inhabitants, finds a new study. About 5 to 10% of the indigenous peoples on the islands...

Police Check MI6 Agents' DNA in Dead Spy Probe

Kevin Spak — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:05:05 CDT

London Metropolitan Police suspect that one of Gareth Williams' MI6 co-workers was in his apartment the night he died, and they want DNA samples from 50 of them to test that theory, the Telegraph reports. Weak traces of DNA from at least two people have been found in the flat,...

How DNA Can Make You Nice

Matt Cantor — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:56:41 CDT

Whether you're a nice person isn't just about your life experiences: Chemicals appear to play a big role, too. Your kindness, or lack of it, depends in part on whether your brain has the right kind of receptors for the hormones behind affection, scientists find. Researchers asked hundreds of subjects...

Commit a Misdemeanor? NY to Demand Your DNA

Rob Quinn — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:59:18 CDT

New York is poised to become the first state in the nation to require people convicted of any crime, no matter how minor, to provide DNA samples for a database. The state's lawmakers are putting the finishing touches on the measure, which would double the size of New York's DNA...

Human, Gorilla DNA: Just 1.75% of It Is Different

Evann Gastaldo — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:04:33 CST

In decoding the DNA of a western lowland gorilla, scientists made a discovery that may surprise you: Humans and gorillas differ in just 1.75% of their DNA, making our genomes more similar than previously thought. That percentage actually drops to 1.37% when compared to chimpanzees, our closest living...

What Really Killed Off Neanderthals (Hint: Not Us)

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:35:37 CST

So we didn't kill off the Neanderthals after all. That's the conclusion of researchers who analyzed Neanderthal-bone DNA and deduced that most of them died off in Western Europe during the Ice Age, long before encountering modern humans. A small Neanderthal group lived on for about 10,000 more years...

32K-Year-Old Plant Brought Back to Life

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:17:58 CST

A flower that last bloomed when saber-toothed cats roamed the Earth is once again alive and growing. Russian scientists say they've dug up remnants of a 32,000-year-old plant from Siberia's frozen wasteland and successfully cloned 36 more of them from its fruit tissue, the New York Times reports. Now...

DNA Ties 1991 Murder to 17th-Century Family

Evann Gastaldo — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:00:06 CST

In December, stumped Washington state authorities sent a DNA sample from an unsolved 1991 murder to a forensic consultant in California—and though she didn't return with a match to the murderer himself, she did figure out who his 17th-century ancestors were. The DNA profile closely matched the family of...

For Just $1K, You'll Soon Be Able to Map Your Genes

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:13:28 CST

Want to map your genes, but don't have the $3,000 the cheapest sequencing currently costs? By the end of the year, you could be in luck: California genomics company Life Technologies Corp. will introduce a machine today that, by year's end, is expected to be able to map your...