January 11, 2010
As shown in these ancestry paintings from 23andMe, the proportion of African DNA can vary widely for African Americans. A recent study led by Carlos Bustamante of Cornell and Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that genetically speaking, African American can mean a lot of different [...]
December 30, 2009
In our last post we highlighted a few of the coolest (in our opinion!) health-related developments of 2009. But human genetics isn't all about disease. Here are a few more favorites: The Romanovs 2009 saw the identification of the remains of the missing members of this Russian royal family, as well [...]
September 24, 2009
Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness and is estimated to affect over 66 million people worldwide. This group of diseases is typically caused by increased pressure in the eye, which slowly damages the optic nerve and leads to gradual vision loss and eventual, incurable blindness if left untreated. [...]
May 26, 2009
Malaria is one of the leading causes of death in the developing world, claiming nearly a million victims each year. The great majority of them are African children below the age of five. The illness is caused by a single-celled parasite called Plasmodium that is transmitted by mosquito bites to humans. In a [...]
April 30, 2009
When scientific research is published, the authors often confess that they wish they'd collected more data. Critical reviews of research studies often say the same thing. Indeed, if there's anything scientists love, it's more data. Which is why the members of an international team of genetic [...]
March 5, 2009
Once distributed throughout tropical Africa, Pygmies now live in pockets of the continent's rainforest.Africa is home to a number of dwindling hunter-gatherer populations, most of them living deep in the rainforests that stretch from western Africa's Atlantic coast to the eastern edge of the Democratic [...]
August 4, 2008
This guest post is by Brenna Henn, a doctoral student in Stanford University's Department of Anthropology and a 23andMe consultant. Brenna studies human evolution using genetic information. Her interests include the origin of modern humans, migration patterns among African groups, and genetic models of [...]
