Watching the Olympics, I am awed by the athleticism of the contestants: they compete with strength, skill and coordination that I could hardly dream of possessing. Certainly hard work and...

March 23rd is National Puppy Day! How did the Shar-Pei get his wrinkly skin? The question sounds like the beginning of one of Kipling’s “Just So” stories, but this and...

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...

New genetic research may explain why Fluffy is so fluffy. A study led by researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute scanned 1,000 dogs from 80 breeds, looking for...

On occasion, the Spittoon departs from its usual mission of bringing you the latest and greatest in human genetics news in order to report on particularly interesting discoveries in other...

When they eat purines, a class of chemicals that are found in many types of food and most abundant in organ meats and some types of fish and shellfish,, most...