All people have trillions of bacteria living in their intestines. If you place them on a scale, they weigh around 1.5 kg. Previously, a major part of these 'blind passengers' were unknown, as they are difficult or impossible ...
Aug 28, 2013
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A $4.5 billion initiative to sequence the genomes of three million Africans would not only benefit a continent long neglected in gene-based healthcare, but advance understanding of genetic disease worldwide, the project leader ...
Feb 11, 2021
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Like any other organism on the planet, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is prone to the natural genetic diversity that may arise from mutations. Since the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) hit the world, there ...
Aug 24, 2020
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Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report that humans have a surprisingly high number of genes in which one of two copies has been randomly silenced. They suggest that the phenomenon is ...
Feb 4, 2016
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A new study explores how herpes simplex virus might change when passed from one individual to another, information that may prove useful in future development of therapeutics and vaccines. This rare glimpse into a transmission ...
Oct 22, 2017
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Telomeres are DNA-protein structures that play a vital role in maintaining DNA stability and integrity. Telomere length (TL) is an important biomarker of aging and overall health, but TL has been mostly studied in adult populations ...
Sep 25, 2018
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The blood of schizophrenia patients features genetic material from more types of microorganisms than that of people without the debilitating mental illness, research at Oregon State University has found.
May 22, 2018
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Laboratory research has always been limited in terms of what conclusions scientists can safely extrapolate from animal experiments to the human population as a whole. Many promising findings in mice have not held up under ...
May 29, 2011
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Treatment of HIV/AIDs has evolved greatly since the disease's emergence in 1981. When antiretrovirals were first introduced, almost every patient developed drug resistance within the first year of drug use. Today, however, ...
Mar 7, 2016
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Hardship experienced by mothers during their own childhood or during pregnancy is reflected in the composition of their 2-year-old children's gut microbiomes, reports an international team of scientists led by UCLA psychologists.
Jul 20, 2023
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Genetic diversity is a level of biodiversity that refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary.
The academic field of population genetics includes several hypotheses and theories regarding genetic diversity. The neutral theory of evolution proposes that diversity is the result of the accumulation of neutral substitutions. Diversifying selection is the hypothesis that two subpopulations of a species live in different environments that select for different alleles at a particular locus. This may occur, for instance, if a species has a large range relative to the mobility of individuals within it. Frequency-dependent selection is the hypothesis that as alleles become more common, they become less fit. This is often invoked in host-pathogen interactions, where a high frequency of a defensive allele among the host means that it is more likely that a pathogen will spread if it is able to overcome that allele.
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