A study of the Bajau — an ethnic Malay people who for a thousand years have lived in and around the ocean as so-called Sea Nomads — offers the latest example of how genetic adaptations have given some populations the advantage they need to survive.

23andMe scientist collects data while trekking to Everest base camp to record in real time the impact of altitude on the human body. With enough data from people it may be possible to see why some of us do better than others at higher elevations.

Geneticist David Reich The ability to extract and then sequence ancient DNA, not just from ancient human bones, but also from the bones of our ancient cousins the Neanderthals, is...

New research by scientists at Vanderbilt University adds to our understanding of the legacy of our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals. The study looked specifically at health conditions, finding associations between...

We might not give Neanderthals much respect, but modern humans probably owe our survival, at least in part, to our now-extinct short and burly ancient cousins. A new study by...

The pace of discovery in genetics is such that every few months a new finding has the potential to change something fundamental about our understanding of the science. To keep...

With one very important exception Tibetans and their Han Chinese neighbors are genetically very similar, but that one difference makes all the difference. In the breathlessly thin air of the...

BioCentury This Week has done a nice series of interviews with Svante Paabo, the director of evolutionary genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who...

Scientists at the University of Washington’s Department of Genome Sciences, report that they can zero in on remnant Neanderthal DNA in modern humans, identifying specific regions in our genome where...

Each year at this time 23andMe puts together a list of the most interesting genetic findings of 2013. We’re doing that again but with a twist. We want to include...