9th May 2008 : Monotreme's genome shares features with mammals, birds and reptiles.

2nd Apr 2008 : The Y chromosome retains a remarkable record of human ancestry, since it is passed directly from father to son. In an article published online today in Genome Research scientists have utilized recently described genetic variations on the part of the Y chromosome that does not undergo recombination to significantly update and refine the Y chromosome haplogroup tree.

24th Jan 2008 : US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria, according to a study published Thursday.

20th Jan 2008 : The ancestral relationships of people living in the widely scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, long a puzzle to anthropologists, may have been solved by a new genetic study, researchers reported Thursday.

25th Nov 2007 : A recent discovery in stem cell research is no minor event: researchers have figured out how to reprogram adult cells into a state that is nearly indistinguishable from that of embryonic, pluripotent stem cells. This is huge news that promises to accelerate the pace of research in the field.

20th Nov 2007 : Now that biologists in Oregon have reported using cloning to produce a monkey embryo and extract stem cells, it looks more plausible than before that a human embryo will be cloned and that, some day, a cloned human will be born. But not necessarily on this side of the Pacific.

17th Nov 2007 : Over millions of years of evolution, a gene called GRIA2 has continued to do it's job of making a receptor for neurotransmitters.

22nd Oct 2007 : Two curious political relationships of Senator Barack Obama came to light last month in The Chicago Sun-Times: he is an 11th cousin to President Bush, and a 9th cousin once removed to Vice President Dick Cheney.

5th Oct 2007 : Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

4th Sep 2007 : The earliest domesticated pigs in Europe, which many archaeologists believed to be descended from European wild boar, were actually introduced from the Middle East by Stone Age farmers, new research suggests.

4th Sep 2007 : The full human DNA sequence of one healthy middle-aged man is a boggling array of genetic quirks, burps and hiccups: There are seven billion more humans to go

9th Jul 2007 : Three years ago in The Atlantic, the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel wrote a critique of genetic engineering titled "The Case Against Perfection."

8th Jul 2007 : FORGET genetic engineering. The new idea is synthetic biology, an effort by engineers to rewire the genetic circuitry of living organisms.

30th Jun 2007 : Scientists at the institute directed by J. Craig Venter, a pioneer in sequencing the human genome, are reporting that they have successfully transplanted the genome of one species of bacteria into another, an achievement they see as a major step toward creating synthetic forms of life.

27th Jun 2007 : Researchers studying Neanderthal DNA say it should be possible to construct a complete genome of the ancient hominid despite the degradation of the DNA over time.

4th Jun 2007 : JAMES D. WATSON, who helped crack the DNA code half a century ago, last week became the first person handed the full text of his own DNA on a small computer disk. But he won't be the last.

4th May 2007 : As May dawns and the mothers among us excitedly anticipate the clever e-cards that we soon will be linking to and the overpriced brunches that we will somehow end up paying for, the following job description may ring a familiar note:

12th Apr 2007 : Foghorn Leghorn would be proud.

The cantankerous Looney Tunes rooster and his brethren appear to be the closest living descendants of the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex that ruled the world of dinosaurs.

2nd Apr 2007 : They swab the cheeks of strangers and pluck hairs from corpses. They travel hundreds of miles to entice their suspects with an old photograph, or sometimes a free drink. Cooperation is preferred, but not necessarily required to achieve their ends.

25th Mar 2007 :

24th Mar 2007 : Mice engineered to express a human photopigment gene show trichromatic vision, a process that may replicate the evolution of primate sensory systems