DNA testing of ancient manuscripts

A fascinating DNA mystery story: researchers are testing centuries old illuminated manuscripts to determine where and when they were produced. Read the story here.

Who's your daddy?

As genetic testing gets more and more common place, people may find that they're not who they think they were. In this article recently published in the LA Times, you can learn about the Kincaid project.

In one case, two brothers were surprised to discover they had different fathers. They confronted their elderly mother, who denied the most obvious possibilities -- that she had been unfaithful to her husband, the man they had always known as Dad, or that one son was adopted.

"It has been traumatic for some to discover their true lineage through the DNA tests," said Don Kincaid, a 76-year-old Texan who oversees the Kincaid surname project and witnessed the brothers' ordeal.

Read the article here.

Cloning horses may reveal insights into complex genetics

There are lots of beliefs about genetics. One of the very persistent notions is that when an individual is cloned, the clone is an exact phenotypic copy of the original. That is, the clone and original will be exactly the same in every way: ability, talents, preferences, athletic ability, and so on. However, inheritance and gene expression are much more complicated than that. Now, a new "experiment" may shed light on how things like epigenetics, environment, and quantitiative traits (like athletic performance) work. Check out this article on what a cloned racehorse is teaching us.

Turning Genes On

Scientists have discovered a new way to turn genes on that may pave the way for gene therapies.

"There's a new technique for targeting gene therapy to specific tissues: sound waves that turn on gene expression, according to an article published online in PNAS"

Check it out in a blog post on The Scientist published here.

Rainforests are storehouses of genetic diversity