Thursday, August 18, 2016

Examples of recent evolutionary changes in humans

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/7-strange-and-surprising-ways-that-humans-have-recently-evolved/all/

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Advances in genetics class since your high school biology class


Over the past decades, the field of genetics rapidly developed, for example in the areas of inherited diseases, cancer, personalized medicine, genetic counseling, the microbiome, diagnosis and discovery of viruses, taxonomy of species, genealogy, forensic science, epigenetics, junk DNA, gene therapy and gene editing.

Joel Eissenberg, Ph.D., associate dean for research and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine summarizes major advances in genetics since the 1960s:

When Did You Go to High School?
If you took high school biology in the …
1960s, you learned about the structure of the double helix and how sequences of DNA encode amino acids.
1970s, you may also have learned about cloning and the potential for recombinant DNA.
1980s, your class may have covered the clinical use of recombinant human insulin for diabetes treatment and the advent of GMO foods.
1990s, your class may have studied the molecular basis for human genetic disorders, like cystic fibrosis.
2000s, your teachers likely described how the human genome was being sequenced.
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What’s changed in genetics since your high school biology class?: The field of genetics has seen astonishing breakthroughs and the development of world-changing technologies in the past half century.