Dec 30 2009
In our last post we highlighted a few of the coolest (in our opinion!) health-related developments of 2009. But human genetics isn’t all about disease. Here are a few more favorites:
The Romanovs
2009 saw the identification of the remains of the missing members of this Russian royal family, as well as identification of the mutation that [...]
Aug 31 2009
New genetic research may explain why Fluffy is so fluffy.
A study led by researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute scanned 1,000 dogs from 80 breeds, looking for genes associated with different hair types: curly, wavy, straight, wiry, long and any combination of these. Their results, published online last week in Science, show that [...]
Jul 17 2009
On occasion, the Spittoon departs from its usual mission of bringing you the latest and greatest in human genetics news in order to report on particularly interesting discoveries in other species. Many times these stories are about dogs and the reason is simple: dogs are awesome.
Well, there is more to it. In addition to being [...]
Nov 07 2008
When they eat purines, a class of chemicals that are found in many types of food and most abundant in organ meats and some types of fish and shellfish,, most mammals break them down into a substance called allantoin, which is then excreted. The only exceptions are humans, great apes and Dalmatian dogs, all of [...]
