A new study, published in the journal PLoS One, suggests that child abuse can permanently 'mark' genes in the brain, and provides evidence that early life events can affect our genes. Researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, led by Moshe Szyf, examined the postmortem brains of...
Female twins are up to five times more likely to be affected by premature ovarian failure (early menopause) than other women, say US scientists. The research, published online last week in the journal Human Reproduction, studied more than 800 twin pairs of women born in the UK...
A team of scientists have found evidence that RNA in the sperm of mice is able to transmit a trait that is not coded for in the animal's DNA. The team, working at the University of Nice, France, were studying a gene called Kit. This gene occurs...
The US government has announced that it will provide initial funds of $100 million for the 'Cancer Genome Atlas', a project that aims to catalogue the hundreds of different genetic errors that can turn a normal cell into a cancerous one. Launched by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last...
New research shows that a person's health could be affected by the diet and lifestyle of their grandfathers during childhood. The studies, carried out at the University of Bristol in the UK and Umea University in Sweden, suggest that some environmental factors can affect the genetic information passed on to...
Scientists based at Hong Kong University have found a way to identify traces of fetal DNA in a pregnant woman's blood, bringing non-invasive prenatal testing a step closer. The researchers, who published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have developed a new technique for distinguishing...
Changes to gene 'on-off switches' caused by environmental and lifestyle influences could help explain why identical twins are often not identical, especially as they get older. An international team of scientists has looked at 'epigenetic' differences - changes that affect gene activity - in identical twins. The researchers found that young twins...
Toxic chemicals can affect male fertility over several generations, a new US study carried out on rats suggests. The research, published in Science, shows that a common fungicide and a pesticide cause fertility problems in male rats that are passed on to nearly every male in subsequent generations. The study...
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