Book Review: The Rough Guide to Genes and Cloning

This book does what it says on the tin: it is filled to the brim with information on genes and cloning. The authors have managed to treat the basics of the subject without dumbing it down, venturing into specialist areas such as laboratory techniques for cloning and behavioural genetics and explaining the associated jargon along the way, and exploring links with philosophy, culture and psychology...[Read More]

Reduced sentence for murderer with 'genetic predisposition' to aggression

An Italian court has reduced the sentence of a convicted murderer by a year based on evidence that he carries genetic mutations linked to aggressive behaviour. This is the first time that genetics have been considered a mitigating factor in a European court sentencing....[Read More]

Late motherhood causes steep rise in Down syndrome diagnoses

According to figures published in the British Medical Journal last week, the number of diagnoses of Down syndrome in babies and fetuses in England and Wales has risen by 71 per cent over the past 20 years. This is attributed to an increase in maternal age over this period. A concurrent increase in terminations of affected pregnancies as a result of improved prenatal screening methods has meant that numbers of live births with Down syndrome have fallen by one per cent, whereas they would have ...[Read More]

Lords attack cross-generation embryo and gamete donation

In a debate in the House of Lords of the UK parliament last week, Tory Lord Earl Howe criticised revised regulations that allow for embryos, sperm and eggs to be stored for up to 55 years for prematurely infertile parents. Previous legislation set the maximum storage time at ten years....[Read More]

US Task Force recommends free research and health care access to patented genes

The US Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society has accepted a new report from a dedicated Task Force, which recommends that scientists should be allowed to use any gene for research and patient treatment, even when it is patented....[Read More]

Nobel prize awarded for chromosome research

Three US scientists have won this year's Nobel prize for Medicine or Physiology for their work on how DNA protects itself from degradation, the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute announced on 5 October. Their discoveries 'have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies', the Assembly said....[Read More]

Psychosis-related gene variant linked to creativity in healthy people?

A variant of the neuregulin 1 gene associated with an increased risk of psychosis, may positively affect the creative capacity of healthy people, scientists from Semmelweis University in Hungary suggest in a recent article in Psychological Science. However, the limitations of this small study mean that more research will be necessary to confirm this preliminary finding....[Read More]

Human embryonic stem cell lines may now be submitted for US federal funding approval

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched a website through which scientists can request their human Embryonic stem (ES) cell lines to be approved for federally funded research. Eligible lines will appear on the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry, also accessible online. Dr Francis Collins, Director of the NIH, has appointed a working group to assist him in deciding which lines will be approved....[Read More]

Birth complications at higher maternal age related to age at first period

Mothers who started menstruating at an earlier age are at a higher risk for complications at birth, researchers from Cambridge, UK report. This means that the higher risk for complications for older mothers identified in other studies may be dependent on the time that has elapsed since their first period, rather than the mother's age per se. These results are to be published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology....[Read More]