2,473 results
2,473 results for: mutations
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Rust Never Sleeps
A new flare-up in an age-old battle between wheat and a fungal killer.
- Life
The unusual suspects
With no obvious culprit in sight, geneticists do broader sweeps to identify autism’s causes.
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Genetic Dark Matter
Searching for new sources to explain human variation.
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2010 Science News of the Year: Body & Brain
Credit: © Bettmann/Corbis Gene therapy moves forward Despite their promise, technologies to correct defective genes have been plagued by safety problems leading to unintended — and sometimes fatal — outcomes. But scientists are inching toward safer, more effective gene therapies that may one day treat a range of diseases, from psychiatric disorders to autoimmune diseases […]
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2010 Science News of the Year: Genes & Cells
Credit: © Joe McNally/reconstruction by Kennis and Kennis Gene sequencing for all, even Neandertals An unprecedented picture of life’s diversity is emerging as researchers publish the full genetic instruction books of a growing list of species — including one that has been extinct for more than 30,000 years. A project sequencing Neandertal DNA harvested from […]
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Physicists join immune fight
Principles beyond biology may help explain how the body battles infection.
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Alphabet of Life
Searching for clues to the genetic code's origin.
- Health & Medicine
Healthy Aging in a Pill
To extend life span, scientists envision a drug that mimics the benefits of a near-starvation diet.
- Math
Rating the rankings
The U.S. News & World Report rankings of colleges and universities are largely arbitrary, according to a new mathematical analysis.
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Mind the gap: Genetic knowledge and medical power
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project a decade ago, much excitement has swirled around the possibility that determining a person’s genetic makeup could help doctors personalize the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease. But James P. Evans, a physician and geneticist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says the promises […]
- Humans
Greed may breed financial fitness, but evolution allows unselfishness to survive
If greed is good, as Gordon Gekko proclaimed in the 1987 movie Wall Street, then economics ought to be a superlative science. After all, at the core of economic theory sits a greedy idealization of human nature known as Homo economicus. It’s a fictitious species that represents the individual economic agent, motivated by selfishness. H. […]
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Turning numbers into shapes offers potential medical benefits
Until recently, topology was seen as being among the most abstract fields of mathematics, one that bore out Henry John Stephen Smith’s 19th century toast: “Pure mathematics — may it never be of use to anyone!” But now the field, which deals with the shape of many-dimensional objects, has unexpectedly proved its usefulness in, of all places, […]
