We’re all different in our DNA. We’re finally starting to understand when those differences matter

Posted on August 17, 2016May 28, 2020 by admin

STAT, August 17, 2016

I know it sounds strange, but I feel very grateful to a database. It saved me from a lifelong fear of dropping dead because my heart will give out.

The database is known as ExAC, and I had my first experience with it after I got my genome sequenced. For a few weeks, I brought it from one lab to another to ask scientists to help me make sense of it.

Their analysis brought up a doozy of a finding. I have a variant in a gene for heart muscles, called DSG2. Some studies have indicated that having a variant in just one of your two copies of DSG2 can cause a rare condition called arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy.

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From Fins Into Hands: Scientists Discover a Deep Evolutionary Link

Posted on August 17, 2016May 25, 2020 by admin

The New York Times, August 17, 2016

Link

To help his readers fathom evolution, Charles Darwin asked them to consider their own hands.

“What can be more curious,” he asked, “than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include similar bones, in the same relative positions?”

Darwin had a straightforward explanation: People, moles, horses, porpoises and bats all shared a common ancestor that grew limbs with digits. Its descendants evolved different kinds of limbs adapted for different tasks. But they never lost the anatomical similarities that revealed their kinship.

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Scientists Ponder an Evolutionary Mystery: The Female Orgasm

Posted on August 1, 2016May 25, 2020 by admin

The New York Times, August 1, 2016

Link

An eye is for seeing, a nose is for smelling. Many aspects of the human body have obvious purposes.

But some defy easy explanation. For biologists, few phenomena are as mysterious as the female orgasm.

While orgasms have an important role in a woman’s intimate relationships, the evolutionary roots of the experience — a combination of muscle contractions, hormone release, and intense pleasure — have been difficult to uncover.

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