2,475 results
2,475 results for: mutations
- Archaeology
Rat DNA points to Pacific migrations
An analysis of mitochondrial DNA from Pacific rats supports a theory that ancestors of today's Polynesians migrated from Southeast Asia to a string of South Pacific islands in at least two separate dispersals.
-
Clearing Up Blurry Vision: Scientists gaze toward causes of myopia
Scientists are beginning to unravel the genetic mechanism that causes nearsightedness.
- Paleontology
Chipmunks in Wisconsin toughed out ice age
Analyses of DNA from chipmunks in parts of the U.S. Midwest hint that some populations of the creatures stayed in northern refuges rather than migrating south at the beginning of the last ice age.
- Health & Medicine
Gene stifled in some lung, breast cancers
The silencing of a gene called RASSF1A appears to increase the risk of cancer, studies of lung and breast tumors show.
-
Anticancer Protein Locks onto DNA
The protein encoded by the normal form of BRCA1 attaches to DNA directly, seeks out unusual DNA structures, and joins multiple DNA strands together—all activities suggesting a direct role in DNA repair.
- Health & Medicine
New drug takes on intestinal cancer
Imatinib mesylate, already approved by the FDA for treating people with a form of leukemia, blocks the activity of certain enzymes that cause gastrointestinal stromal cells to replicate uncontrollably.
- Health & Medicine
Genetic flaw found in painful gut disease
Scientists have discovered a genetic mutation that occurs in people with Crohn's disease, a digestive disorder that attacks the intestines.
- Health & Medicine
Heart disease linked to clotting gene
African Americans with a mutation in a blood-clotting gene have a sixfold increase in the risk of heart disease, but this is not the case for white Americans with the same mutation.
- Health & Medicine
Genetically altered cells ease hemophilia
A gene therapy using skin cells that are genetically modified to make clotting proteins, multiplied in a lab, and reinjected into a person eases some bleeding in patients with severe hemophilia.
- Anthropology
Gene change hints at brain evolution
A genetic mutation found only in humans first appeared around 2.8 million years ago, perhaps setting the stage for brain enlargement in the Homo lineage.
- Health & Medicine
Immune gene linked to prostate cancer
An immune-cell gene plays a role in predisposing men to prostate cancer.
-
Long live the Y?
Researchers have identified a means by which the Y chromosome may forestall, or at least delay, the gradual degradation that some biologists argue will ultimately delete it from the human genome.
