Journal Club

Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members

Category Archives: Genetics

Journal Club: How to find the rare, disease-resistant individuals who could help forge new therapies

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Sandeep Ravindran

A new study finds individuals who appear healthy despite having mutations associated with severe childhood diseases, a finding that could help uncover factors that protect against these diseases. “Finding those individuals is the starting point for searching for the other … Continue reading →

Categories: Genetics | Journal Club | Tagged big data, disease, genetics, resilience | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Tasmanian devils hit with another contagious cancer

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Helen Shen

Cancers aren’t usually contagious, but a tiny number of them can spread when diseased cells move from one animal to another. One such cancer, an aggressive facial tumor, has wiped out large numbers of Tasmanian devils in Australia over the … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Ecology | Genetics | Tagged cancer, contagion, Tasmanian Devil | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Even in honeybees, early aggression makes for angry adults

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Charles Choi

A childhood of violence can make humans and other animals violent later on. Now scientists unexpectedly find the same holds true for even the simple honeybee. Unlike people, however, greater aggression in honeybees was not associated with later health problems. … Continue reading →

Journal Club: T-cells transform, defying expectations and suggesting a new therapeutic avenue

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Charles Choi

Inflammation can help the human body fight off infections. If left unchecked, it can also lead to a variety of inflammatory disorders, such as gout and lupus. Now scientists find that in mice, a kind of immune cell that normally … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Epigenetic marks may reveal how the environment affected ancient societies

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Charles Choi

Ancient DNA can shed light on the past in myriad ways — for instance, genes and mutations may reveal important adaptations or physiological changes. But gene-regulating molecules latched onto the DNA, known as epigenetic marks, may also reveal important clues. … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Study reveals most comprehensive snake family tree to date

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Charles Choi

Snakes are incredibly diverse, with more than 3,400 living species found on land and in the water. But little is known about how the first serpents looked and behaved. Now scientists at Yale University have reconstructed what the ancestor of … Continue reading →

Categories: Evolution | Genetics | Journal Club | Tagged evolutionary history, family tree, fossils, snakes | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Newly found mutation contributes to irregular chromosome number, a major cause of pregnancy loss

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Charles Choi

When a baby does not make it to term, an irregular number of chromosomes in the embryo is often the root cause. The phenomenon, known as aneuploidy, is surprisingly common: it can be detected in roughly three-quarters of human embryos … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Cultivated sweet potatoes were genetically modified — naturally

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Charles Choi

The first genetically modified foods were not human creations. Scientists have now found that sweet potatoes all over the world naturally contain bacterial genes that the microbes introduced. Such transgenes may have provided attractive traits for domestication, researchers added. The … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Genetic detective work suggests a crucial role for Maya in papaya domestication

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Charles Choi

Papaya is a multimillion-dollar crop with a complicated sex life. Now plant geneticist Ray Ming at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his colleagues find that hermaphrodite papayas, the version most useful to farmers, most likely arose due to … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Newly found tiny peptides may have a big role

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Charles Choi

Tiny proteins known as micropeptides can play key roles in developmental biology. These molecules are encoded by equally little bits of DNA known as short or small open reading frames that often escape detection amidst an extraordinary number of meaningless … Continue reading →