All known life uses 4 DNA letters; UC San Diego showed an existing bacterial enzyme can accurately read and transcribe 8, doubling the genetic alphabet with synthetic letters
Representative image of DNA All life on Earth, from bacteria to blue whales, writes its genetic instructions using the same four-letter alphabet. These four DNA bases, usually referred to as A, T, C and G, pair up in predictable ways to store and pass on…
Six people buried in a rare Viking Age grave in Latvia show signs of violence and family ties, with DNA pointing to local Baltic ancestry
A rare ninth-century grave in Latvia has revealed clues about violence, family ties and life during the Viking Age. Six people were buried at the Čunkāni-Dreņģeri cemetery in the Zemgale region, an unusual arrangement for a Semigallian burial ground…
This city in New York rejects ‘Lake America’ name, Republican mayor says Lake Ontario is in the DNA of the residents
This city in New York rejects the renaming of Lake Ontario. In a rare display of intra-party pushback, Robert Corradino, the Republican mayor of Oswego, New York, a city situated along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, has publicly rejected recent…
Scientists tested spiders as living DNA traps; their stomach contents can reveal which insects and other animals are living around them
Wolf spider on white background. Image Credit: Philip N. Cohen/Wikipedia A study published in ‘Experimental and Applied Entomology’ has explored how spiders could tell what animals are living around them by examining traces of prey DNA left inside their…
A YouTuber spent 4 years helping strangers find lost relatives; then a DNA test gave him a 22.7% match with a 66-year-old Texas woman who turned out to be his long-lost sister
Blair Clark and his wife Leah and details of DNA testing kit from MyHeritage. Blair Clark and his wife Leah have spent more than four years on their YouTube show, The Leah and Blair Slog, helping people reconnect with relatives they’ve never known, or…
Scientists searched for threatened Australian rainforest frogs without seeing or hearing them; DNA in creek water collected up to 22 km downstream revealed populations in places where the frogs had disappeared
Photos of a study species: the Australian Lace-lid (L. dayi)Photo credit: Conrad J Hoskin. In the cool, wet upland streams of Queensland’s Wet Tropics, several species of rainforest frog were pushed to the brink in the 1980s and 1990s by chytrid fungus,…
Scientists found that DNA once dismissed as “junk” helps chromosomes find their partners
For years, the dense loops of repetitive DNA clustered near the middle of chromosomes were treated as evolutionary clutter. According to the new study published in Nature, titled ‘Meiotic pairing through barcode-like satellite DNA repeats‘,…
Zebra mussel DNA detected in Utah’s Colorado River for first time, raising alarm over invasive species threat across the Upper Colorado River basin
An invasive species threat has reached a new stretch of the Colorado River, after scientists detected zebra mussel DNA in Utah’s portion of the river for the first time. The discovery has raised concerns among wildlife officials because zebra mussels can…
Car salesman becomes Belgian prince after DNA test confirms royal paternity
Clément Vandenkerckhove (R) with his father Prince Laurent (Source: Instagram) A Belgian car salesman has gone from ordinary life to royal status after Prince Laurent formally recognised him as his son, bringing a long-hidden paternity story into the…
In 1975, Chantal Doecke was evacuated from Vietnam to Australia as a newborn; 49 years later, a DNA test revealed the twin brother she never knew existed
Chantal Doecke at Onkaparinga River in Adelaide A commercial DNA test has helped an Australian woman discover that she has a twin brother living only a short flight away. Chantal Doecke was evacuated from Saigon as a newborn in 1975 and brought to…