This is a fascinating piece in Physorg about the likelihood that mother’s can transmit genes to their children that harm their sons but not their daughters – thanks to an evolutionary arms race between mitochondrial DNA (only transmitted by females in ova)...
I am acquainted with Steve Jones, professor of zoology at University College, London. He’s a lovely science writer and has talked a lot of sense. But I have never understood why he is so implacably opposed to the idea that Homo sapiens continues to evolve. He...
Researchers at Penn State have discovered a mutation in the gene for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor which would desensitise an individual’s reaction to the aromatic hydrocarbons in smoke from cooking fires, and in meat roasted upon them, and through exposure to burning...
Many thanks to Cynthia Beall for flagging up this interesting Scientific American piece about the discovery of an osteosarcoma in the toe bone of an as yet unidentified hominin discovered in the Swartkrans Cave and dated to around 1.7 million years ago. The source...
