Blog Archives

Genetic problems among the Amish

TranslationCohen syndrome is an inherited disorder that affects many parts of the body and is characterized by developmental delay, intellectual disability, small head size (microcephaly), and weak muscle tone (hypotonia). Other features include progressive nearsightedness (myopia), degeneration of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye (retinal dystrophy), an unusually large range of joint movement (hypermobility), and distinctive facial features. Characteristic facial features include thick hair and eyebrows, long eyelashes, unusually-shaped eyes (down-slanting and wave-shaped), a bulbous nasal tip, a smooth or shortened area between the nose and the upper lip (philtrum), and prominent upper central teeth. The combination …

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Genes can be criminogenic

TranslationAs a follow-up to my post below, I just wanted to check some recent literature on crime and heritability. I found this, Heritability, Assortative Mating and Gender Differences in Violent Crime: Results from a Total Population Sample Using Twin, Adoption, and Sibling Models: Research addressing genetic and environmental determinants to antisocial behaviour suggests substantial variability across studies. Likewise, evidence for etiologic gender differences is mixed, and estimates might be biased due to assortative mating. We used longitudinal Swedish total population registers to estimate the heritability of objectively measured violent offending (convictions) in classic twin (N = 36,877 pairs), adoptee-parent (N …

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Jeef Wheelwright: The Wandering Gene

TranslationJeef Wheelwright talking about his new work, “The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion and DNA.” A brilliant and emotionally resonant exploration of science and family history. A vibrant young Hispano woman, Shonnie Medina, inherits a breast-cancer mutation known as BRCA1.185delAG. It is a genetic variant characteristic of Jews. The Medinas knew they were descended from Native Americans and Spanish Catholics, but they did not know that they had Jewish ancestry as well. The mutation most likely sprang from Sephardic Jews hounded by the Spanish Inquisition. The discovery of the gene leads to a fascinating investigation of cultural …

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Evidence of pre-Roman tribal genetic structure in Basques from uniparentally inherited markers

TranslationThis new study paints a picture of continuity of genetic structure among Basques since pre-Roman times. Basque people have received considerable attention from anthropologists, geneticists and linguists during the last century due to the singularity of their language and to other cultural and biological characteristics. Despite the multidisciplinary efforts performed to address the questions of the origin, uniqueness and heterogeneity of Basques, the genetic studies performed up to now have suffered from a weak study-design where populations are not analyzed in an adequate geographic and population context. Quelle: Evidence of pre-Roman tribal genetic structure in Basques from uniparentally inherited markers.

Genetic Affinities of the Central Indian Tribal Populations

Rooted maximum parsimony tree

TranslationThe central Indian state Madhya Pradesh is often called as ‘heart of India’ and has always been an important region functioning as a trinexus belt for three major language families (Indo-European, Dravidian and Austroasiatic). There are less detailed genetic studies on the populations inhabited in this region. Therefore, this study is an attempt for extensive characterization of genetic ancestries of three tribal populations, namely; Bharia, Bhil and Sahariya, inhabiting this region using haploid and diploid DNA markers. Quelle: PLoS ONE: Genetic Affinities of the Central Indian Tribal Populations.