Medical and genetic data from more than a million Americans are now in scientific databases. Some programs hoard the data, while others share widely with scientists, hoping to speed medical discovery.
Scientists around the world are working to correct a problem with genetic health information — too much of it is currently based on samples of Europeans.
Studies on the genetics of human diseases have focused largely on people of European descent. Researchers say this lack of diversity is bad science and exacerbates health inequities.
A story from the journal Science suggests that the only "wild" horses in existence aren't actually wild at all but rather are the feral descendants of an early domestication.
They're the Godzillas of the virus world, pushing the limit of what is considered alive. Researchers are trying to figure out where they came from. (And no, they aren't known to make people sick.)
In engineering the cell, researchers paired away nearly all genes that weren't essential to life. It might eventually serve as a basic framework for different sorts of cellular factories, they say.
At least three genes that predispose some of us to hay fever and other allergies came from Neanderthal DNA, scientists say. The genes very likely boosted the immunity of our early ancestors.
Octopuses are cool. They can regrow lost arms, change the color of their skin, and are surprisingly smart. Scientists who sequenced the first octopus genome say it's nearly as big as a person's.
A single genetic mutation might decide who ends up in bed with the sniffles and who heads to the hospital, because it shuts down immune system molecules called interferons.
Researchers who helped develop powerful techniques warn that tweaking the genome is now easy. More public debate's needed, they say, before making changes in genes passed from parent to child.
