gene sequencing

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They May Have Been First in South America, Disappeared

Remains in Colombia reveal isolated group with no known descendants

(Newser) - Colombian researchers have identified a previously unknown human lineage after sequencing ancient DNA from remains unearthed near Bogota. The group, dubbed the Checua after the excavation site in Nemocon, is estimated to have lived about 6,000 years ago. While most other remains from the region share ancestry with...

With Locks of Hair, Scientists Solve a Beethoven Mystery
With Locks of Hair, Scientists
Solve a Beethoven Mystery
in case you missed it
Mar 26, 2023 7:15 AM CDT

With Locks of Hair, Scientists Solve a Beethoven Mystery

DNA indicates the contributing factors of the liver disease thought to have killed him

(Newser) - With one Ludwig van Beethoven mystery likely solved , it's on to another one: why he spent his life in so much pain. It's a quest that led scientists to sequence his genome in a search for answers as to what may have caused his hearing loss, days-long bouts...

Body Stuffed in Sack Left in Desert ID'd 52 Years Later

Colleen Audrey Rice, found dead in Arizona in 1971, hailed from Ohio

(Newser) - An unidentified woman whose body was found stuffed in a sack in the Arizona desert in 1971 is nameless no more. Fifty-two years to the day after her body was found, Mohave County's oldest unidentified murder victim was identified Tuesday as Colleen Audrey Rice, a native of Portsmouth, Ohio,...

17 Bodies Thrown in Well Point to Medieval Hate Crime

Researchers say individuals were Jewish, perhaps killed during antisemitic riot

(Newser) - Almost 20 years after the jumbled bodies of 17 men, women, and children were found at the bottom of a medieval well in Norwich, England, researchers believe they know why they were thrown in there, many of them headfirst: It was an antisemitic hate crime. In sequencing DNA preserved in...

DNA Proves He Raped, Killed a Girl—and Someone Else

Genome sequencing cracks Las Vegas murders of Nanette Vanderburg, Stephanie Isaacson

(Newser) - Las Vegas police say they finally know who killed a 14-year-old girl during her walk to school more than 32 years ago. Stephanie Isaacson never arrived at school on June 1, 1989, a fact her father only learned when she failed to appear that afternoon. Her body was found that...

Doctor Now Studying Rare Disease That Nearly Killed Him

David Fajgenbaum's last rites were read to him in 2010

(Newser) - When David Fajgenbaum's mother died of brain cancer, the Georgetown University student founded Students of Ailing Mothers and Fathers in 2007 to cope. Now a doctor who's been diagnosed with a rare and deadly disease, he's founded another organization, the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network , where he works...

Ice Bucket Challenge Funds 'ALS Breakthrough'

Gene tied to the disease has been identified

(Newser) - The $115 million raised from 2014's Ice Bucket Challenge for the ALS Association's research and services helped fund what's now being called an "ALS breakthrough," per the Guardian : the ID of a gene linked to the disease, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which...

Yale Grad Students Debunk 1951 Dinner-Party Legend

A hoax of mammoth proportions is revealed

(Newser) - The Explorers Club Annual Dinner in New York—now going on its 112th year —has long treated its guests to exotic food items, including in more recent years deep-fried tarantulas, goat eyeball martinis, and the barbecued sex organs of bulls, reports the Atlantic . But the most famous meal of...

Scientist Tackles 'Last Major Disease We Don't Know Anything About'

Whitney Dafoe no longer walks, talks, or eats, and is fed intravenously

(Newser) - Whitney Dafoe packed a lot in his first quarter-century of life. The son of renowned scientist Ronald Davis, the head of the Genome Technology Center at Stanford University, was an award-winning photographer who traveled the world and worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign. Now 31 and diagnosed with systemic exertion...

Sorry, Blood in Gourd Isn't from Louis XVI
 Sorry, Blood in Gourd 
 Isn't from Louis XVI 
study says
Apr 25, 2014 10:06 AM CDT

Sorry, Blood in Gourd Isn't from Louis XVI

Researchers map out genome

(Newser) - A famous gourd was believed to contain the blood of Louis XVI after he was beheaded: It said as much in an inscription, and some research has appeared to confirm it. Now, however, experts have sequenced the blood's genome, and they're saying the opposite, the BBC reports. Their...

Breakthrough in Fetus Genome Mapping Raises Abortion Fears

Parents will be able to test for wide range of traits

(Newser) - Genetic testing on fetuses has long been dangerous, difficult, and useful only for a small number of disorders, but a new technique allows scientists to sequence an unborn child's complete genome using only a blood sample from the mother and saliva from the father, reports the New York Times...

Scientists Sequence Genetic Code of Marijuana

Cannabis plant falls under the microscope

(Newser) - Marijuana is giving up its secrets: A Massachusetts company has sequenced the entire genome of the cannabis plant for the first time, reports the Nature news blog. The results from Medicinal Genomics have yet to be peer-reviewed and probably won't be published in full until next year. And the...

Genome Breakthrough Zeroes In on Disease

New approach decodes entire genomes of individual patients

(Newser) - Two teams of researchers have identified the exact genetic cause of their patients' rare diseases by sequencing their entire genomes, a sharp but promising departure of the previous application of genetics to disease. “I suspect that in the next few years human genetics will finally begin to systematically deliver...

Speed Gene Helps Horse Breeders Hedge Bets

Blood test shows proclivity for maximum speed or stamina

(Newser) - Sounds like a breeder's dream: Researchers in Dublin say they've identified a speed gene, with variations that predict whether a racehorse is better suited for short-distance sprints or longer tests of stamina. Comparing the genetic codes of 179 winners with their track records, they identified three variants of the myostatin...

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