This post is a review of The Social Genome: The New Science Of Nature and Nurture. By Dalton Conley. W.W. Norton & Company. 292 pp. $29.99. A breakthrough in socio-genomics, the polygenic index (PGI) ...

Nature and nurture both determine how likely you are to develop a particular disease. Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision via Getty Images Sitting in my doctor’s examination room, I was surprised when she ...

A large genetic screen has revealed how stem cells transform into brain cells, exposing hundreds of genes that make this process possible. Among the discoveries is PEDS1, a gene now linked to a ...

The human genome is no longer just a sequence to be read. It’s a dynamic structure that twists, folds, and reshapes itself in ways that help determine how life functions at the cellular level. In a ...

Most genes are ancient and shared across species. But a small subset of genes are relative newcomers, spontaneously emerging from stretches of DNA that once encoded nothing at all. Now, after nearly a ...

De novo genes are evolution’s magic trick—new genes appearing from non-coding DNA, much like a rabbit pulled from a hat. Once considered impossible, de novo genes have been identified in Drosophila ...

A new study has developed a powerful computational method that can detect how genes interact with each other to influence complex traits in humans at a scale previously impossible. The new method was ...

For millennia, evolution has intrigued many great thinkers, prompting questions about how new traits emerge as species adapt over time. Then, attention shifted to natural selection and the inheritance ...

Most genes are ancient and shared across species. But a small subset of genes are relative newcomers, spontaneously emerging from stretches of DNA that once encoded nothing at all. Now, after nearly a ...

Scientists have identified hundreds of genes that may increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease but the roles these genes play in the brain are poorly understood. This lack of understanding ...