When you were commuting to work this morning, maybe you listened to the traffic report on the radio. And that’s often helpful. But you probably heard a lot about cars and roads that may, or may not affect your commute. If you had a GPS traffic app on your phone, you could see current traffic on your own personal route. Improved technology improves your...

A mystery about the human brain is how its many regions develop and perform in unison. We are normally so blissfully unaware of our minds’ abilities, aren’t we?!!! Autism spectrum disorders show us how deficits in specific brain skills can cumulate to difficulties in communicating, learning, socializing and sensory perception. Forty six percent of the...

It’s my birthday.  I’m of a certain age.  My methylome is diminishing…and I’m taking it personally.  What can epigenetics tell me about halting this process?! There is some context to ageing.  As we age, our global methylation levels decrease.  Yet, gene promoter methylation increases, especially for genes involved in regulation of developmental patterns. ...

In Cortijo, S. et al. Mapping the Epigenetic Basis of Complex Traits (2014) Science Express.  Researchers from the University of Groningen Bioinformatics center, and their collaborators, have made the exciting discovery that epigenotypes in plants result in complex phenotypes that are stably inherited, and subject to selection. The team prepared inbred...

Phenotypes are traits expressed by organisms in a specific environment. When you think of your own ethnicity, you might mostly be considering your appearance. These visible characteristics are associated with where your ancestors came from, of course. Now, don’t take this personally. But, biomedical researchers associate your ethnicity with risks. Why?!...

Recently I had the occasion to take a trip to Manhattan, and visit at the Dream Downtown hotel. The designers of this hotel put a great deal of effort into creating an unusual, cutting edge modern environment, worthy of its name. You enter from the street, into this darkened…yet vast lobby. Two stories above your head, shimmery waves of day light shine...