Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins

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The New York Times, December 4, 2013

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Scientists have found the oldest DNA evidence yet of humans’ biological history. But instead of neatly clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries.

In a paper in the journal Nature, scientists reported Wednesday that they had retrieved ancient human DNA from a fossil dating back about 400,000 years, shattering the previous record of 100,000 years.

The fossil, a thigh bone found in Spain, had previously seemed to many experts to belong to a forerunner of Neanderthals. But its DNA tells a very different story.

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An Ancient, Mysterious Scrap of Human DNA

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I can still remember back in 1997 being shocked that a team of scientists had managed to extract a few hundred bases of DNA from a 40,000 year old Neanderthal fossil. Neanderthal DNA! In the years that followed, scientists made huge advances in recovering ancient DNA, with the entire Neanderthal genome published in 2010. But for all that amazement, I had to learn to be resigned that scientists probably wouldn’t get human DNA older than about 100,000 years. Beyond that vintage, the DNA was just too busted up to be recoverable.

Wrong. Very wrong.

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The Quest to End the Flu

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

The Atlantic, December 2013

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On April 28, 2009, a box containing a newly isolated virus showed up at Doris Bucher’s lab. She and her colleagues at New York Medical College opened it up right away. Thousands, or perhaps millions, of lives might depend on what they did next.

The virus was a new kind of influenza, known as 2009 H1N1. It had abruptly started spreading across North America in the previous month, and was beginning to appear in countries around the world. Once scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed it, they realized that the vaccine already in production for the next flu season probably wouldn’t be effective against it. And because it was so new, people’s immune systems might also be unable to stop the virus, which meant that it could become a global outbreak—a pandemic.

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Genetic Secrets in Our Medical Records: My New Column for the New York Times

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Many hospitals and medical practices are shifting from paper to computers, as they convert to electronic medical records. While the technology has been touted mainly as a way to cut costs and improve medical care, it turns out it has an unexpected side benefit: scientists can probe electronic medical records to find hidden connections between genes and diseases. This week in my “Matter” column for the New York Times, I look at this new tool for exploring to our DNA.

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Linking Genes to Diseases by Sifting Through Electronic Medical Records

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The New York Times, November 28, 2013

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The days of scrawled doctor’s notes are slowly coming to a close. In the United States, 93 percent of hospitals are now using at least some electronic medical records and 2.2 percent have given up paper records completely, according to the consulting firm HIMSS Analytics.

The federal government has been pushing for electronic medical records for a decade, arguing that they will improve health care and bring down costs. That is still a matter of debate. Critics charge that the system is hobbled by poorly designed software and that some hospitals are using electronic medical records to bill more for the same services.

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