DNA analysis

At about 2 centimeters in length, Thiomargarita magnifica tests scientists’ notions of how large microbes can grow.

Genetic testing of people who died in Kyrgyzstan eight years before plague reached Europe reveals an ancient strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

Research finds that a dog’s behavior has little to do with its genes.

Scientists find human DNA preserved in lice cement from the heads of South American mummies.

Genomic analysis of ancient chum salmon bones and cultural knowledge from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation suggest that people in the Pacific Northwest managed fisheries for thousands of years by harvesting males and releasing females.

A report of preserved fragments of nuclei and chromatin in a fossilized femur of a 125-million-year-old Caudipteryx dinosaur elicits skepticism.

The newly characterized “elegant jellyfish,” roughly the size of a human hand, had been on display in two aquariums in Japan for more than a decade.

A decade-long effort to probe gene regulation reveals differences between males and females, points to essential regulatory elements, and offers insight into past work on telomeres.

Preserved DNA extracted from the rock-like digestive blobs may offer insights into whale ecology.

For the past 10 years, life science has moved us closer to a complete understanding of what makes us human—our similarities, our differences, and our shared history.

Human remains around Roopkund Lake in India bear South Asian, East Asian, and Mediterranean ancestry.

The DNA of a whale shows its father was a beluga and its mother was a narwhal.

Researchers create a 3-D printed, portable centrifuge that can be affordably produced for science classrooms.

Researchers can now track the expansion of a resistance mechanism that allows the malaria vector Anopholes funestus to detoxify a key insecticide used on bed nets.

Genetic material from old artifacts can link people to their ancestral communities and potentially help descendants find their roots.

At an archaeological site in Peru, researchers have found the remains of hundreds of children and llamas sacrificed in the 15th century.

These Type D killer whales have blunter heads and a different color pattern than other orcas. A new species designation hinges on the results of genetic testing.

Denisovans and Neanderthals likely overlapped at this Stone Age hot spot for thousands of years, and modern Homo sapiens may have dwelled there, too.  

Genetic material from bones could be used to locate living descendants for the remains’ repatriation, researchers showed.