Spots are common in the animal kingdom. Birds, insects, reptiles, fishes, and of course mammals sport spots. In Darwinian terms, a trait persists because it provides a benefit that leads to reproductive success – the

Many posts at DNA Science have been about families navigating life with a rare disease. I especially think of them during October, when so much attention is focused on breast cancer. One in eight women will

Many scientists trace their childhood inspiration to the towering skeletons of dinosaurs that still reign over the regal lobbies of the American Museum of Natural History, myself included. But “natural history” has a different meaning

The firing of CBS CEO Leslie Moonves for his alleged history of revolting attacks on women and the upcoming one-year anniversary of Ronan Farrow’s seminal New Yorker piece on Harvey Weinstein and of Alyssa Milano’s #MeToo tweet echoing Tarana

A choreography of mutational events drives cancer cells to invade and metastasize, changing the biology in ways that enable the errant cells to resist treatments. While the traditional slash-and-burn approaches of chemotherapy and radiation attack

Once upon a time, in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, different types of ancient peoples were having sex. A new report in Nature from Svante Pääbo, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary

Anyone watching the recent 60 Minutes segment on CRISPR would conclude that the gene editing technology is on the brink of pouring forth a cascade of cures. But a recent study reveals a mess of missing