genetics

Tay-Sachs disease is a rare genetic disorder that affects nerve cells (neurons) in the brain and spinal cord causing severe mental and developmental retardation.

Spina bifida is the most common neural tube birth defect in the United States. At the present time the causes of spina bifida are unknown, though it is strongly believed that both genetics and the environment are contributing factors.

The classic nature-versus-nurture debate is especially pronounced in questions of gender identity. Is it a product of culture, as many feminists argue, or of genetic makeup?

Your body comes equipped with its own free virus removal program, in the form of white blood cells. Read on to find out how they guard the front line and maintain your body’s defenses.

Many people are fearful about the possible negative consequences of eating genetically modified foods. In fact, the opposite may end up being true.

Fast and cheap; that’s the future of gene sequencing. Dozens of companies are in a race to be the first to be able to sequence a human genome in under a day for $1000. There’s big money to be made as participants believe that if analysis was more affordable many of us would take advantage of it.

Did you know that you, your pets and other animals are not the only targets of viruses? There are viruses that specifically ‘seek out’ bacteria and kill them. They are known as bacteriophages and are the foundations upon which present knowledge and understanding of molecular biology has been built.

Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002), a gifted scientist in many fields, made several major contributions to the history of genetics. Rules that were named after him laid the foundations for Crick and Watson’s seminal paper on the structure of DNA.

DNA fingerprinting was first applied to a criminal case in 1986, a year after the world first heard about the technology. It established the innocence of a man who had been suspected of murdering and raping two young schoolgirls.

The oldest known DNA molecules date back some 450,000 - 800,000 years ago. They were found in Greenland and were in reasonable shape. Details were published in 2007 as DNA analysis revealed much about the history of this part of the world.