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A year ago, it was big news that the human genome could be sequenced for just $50,000. Now, one physicist is trying to make everyone else look ridiculous by saying he can do the whole damn thing for $30. More »
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For $149 dollars, Atlas Sports Genetics will test your child’s DNA and send you a report listing the sports where your child is likely to succeed. Some parents see it as a way to steer their child toward an activity that is a good match for their abilities. But psychologists and ethicists fear that assigning your child a sports orientation will do more harm than good. More »
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Your desire to lie around the house isn't because you're a slacker: it's in your genes. New research from scientists at the University of North Carolina shows that there's finally a good reason why some people would rather read comic books and play video games all day than, say, go run a marathon. According to kinesiologist Timothy Lightfoot and colleagues, there's a set of at least 23 genes that control the drive to be physically active in mice. Though he's yet to run the same genetic tests on humans, Lightfoot says he has reason to believe it will hold true for us, too. More »
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Are modern humans the hybrid children of early humans and Neanderthals? For over a decade, scientists have wondered what exactly happened to the Neanderthals, low-tech hominids who populated Western Europe, when homo sapiens arrived on the scene from Africa and Asia with sophisticated weaponry and the rudiments of symbolic art. Homo sapiens arrived in Europe roughly 45,000 years ago, and co-existed with Neanderthals for what scientists estimate could have been anywhere from 1000 to 10,000 years. Some remains seem to indicate that the two groups shared the same caves, and might have traded with each other. But what else did they share? More »
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