In the 19th-century, society began to grapple with an emerging problem: How do you prove people are who they say they are? By Clive ThompsonScience and Technology Journalist At 9:00 a.m. last December 14 [2018], a man in Orange County, California, discovered he’d been robbed. Someone had swiped his Volkswagen Golf, his MacBook Air and[…]
Franklin was born a century ago, and her X-ray crystallography work crucially contributed to determining the structure of DNA. Introduction What do coal, viruses and DNA have in common? The structures of each – the predominant power source of the early 20th century, one of the most remarkable forms of life on Earth and the[…]
Before you attribute a trait to a famous ancestor like George Washington or Marie Antoinette, you might want to see how much DNA you actually share with these people. It’s not what you thought. Digging up one’s genealogical roots is second only to gardening in popularity as a hobby and can be much more exciting.[…]
Ancient DNA recovered from a series of skeletons in central Germany up to 7500 years old has been used to reconstruct the first detailed genetic history of modern Europe. The study, published today in Nature Communications, reveals a dramatic series of events including major migrations from both Western Europe and Eurasia, and signs of an unexplained[…]