2,457 results
2,457 results for: mutations
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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, […]
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Killer whales, grandmas and what men want: Evolutionary biologists consider menopause
Menopause seems like a cruel prank that Mother Nature plays on women. First come the hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, irregular periods, irritability and weight gain. Then menstruation stops and fertility ends. Why, many women ask, must they suffer through this? Evolutionary biologists, it turns out, ask themselves more or less the same question. […]
- Health & Medicine
Survivors’ Benefit?
Smallpox outbreaks throughout history may have endowed some people with genetic mutations that make them resistant to the AIDS virus.
- Health & Medicine
NO News
Preliminary research suggests that inhaled nitric oxide may offer a much-needed treatment for patients suffering from complications of sickle cell disease.
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Keeping Bugs from Pumping Drugs
Researchers hope that attacking the machinery some microbes use to pump antimicrobial agents out of their cells may help deal with the increasing problem of drug resistance.
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Placental Puzzle
Do captured viral genes make human pregnancies possible?
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Code Breakers
Scientists are altering bacteria in a most fundamental way.
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Fly Genome Creates a Buzz
Scientists try to make sense of an insect's myriad genes.
