Normally, the genes of endogenous retroviruses remain dormant, but—a bit like a computer virus that springs into action on a trigger—something wakes them up sometimes, and actual viruses are made from them, which then infect other cells in the body. The Danish scientists suggest that this is what happens in multiple sclerosis.
More from Matt Ridley in The Wall Street Journal.
Just how easy is it to make a deadly virus?
This disturbing question has been on the minds of many scientists recently, thanks to a pair of controversial experiments in which the H5N1 bird flu virus was transformed into mutant forms that spread among mammals…
Over the past decade, more amateur biologists have started to do genetic experiments of their own. One hub of this so-called D.I.Y. biology movement, the Web site DIYbio.org, now has more than 2,000 members.
Read more from Carl Zimmer on the recreation of mutant viruses in The New York Times.
This is Matt Ridley writing in the WSJ:
Dr. Pagel’s calls language “one of the most powerful, dangerous and subversive traits that natural selection has ever devised.”… Language is a “technology for rewiring other people’s minds…without either of you having to perform surgery.” But natural section was unlikely to favor such a technology if it helped just the speaker, or just the listener, at the expense of the other. Rather, he says that, just as the language of the genes promotes its own survival via a larger cooperative entity called the body, so language itself endures via the survival of the individual and the tribe.
Languages evolve, just as genes do, changing gradually over time. But 7,000 different human tongues nevertheless seem excessive. Dr. Pagel’s explanation is that, since language serves the interests of the group, when a new tribe splits off from the rest of a society, the people in the new tribe deliberately differentiate themselves the better to unite.
Remember Atul Gawande’s prediction that medicine will become like engineering. Here is the opposite prediction:
Soon a person’s precise genetic data will be augmented by an extraordinary wealth of other digital data (provided by, say, the continuous monitoring of blood pressure, pulse and mood, and a variety of ultra-precise scans). The outcome will be nothing short of a new “science of individuality,” one that defines individuals “at a more granular and molecular level than ever imaginable.”
Full article by Abigail Zuger, M.D. on the genomics revolution in The New York Times.
Do you make decisions quickly based on incomplete information? Do you lose your temper quickly? Are you easily bored? Do you thrive in conditions that seem chaotic to others, or do you like everything well organized? … After extensively tracking novelty-seekers, researchers are seeing the upside. In the right combination with other traits, it’s a crucial predictor of well-being.
Full article on novelty-seeking in The New York Times.
Last month, computer gamers working from home redesigned an enzyme. Last year, a gene-testing company used its customers to find mutations that increase or decrease the risk of Parkinson’s disease.
More from Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal.
With genetic and prenatal screening now common, patients are being diagnosed not with disease but with “pre-disease” or for being at “high risk” of developing disease. Revealing the economic and medical forces that contribute to overdiagnosis, Welch makes a reasoned call for change that would save us from countless unneeded surgeries, excessive worry, and exorbitant costs, all while maintaining a balanced view of both the potential benefits and harms of diagnosis. Drawing on data, clinical studies, and anecdotes from his own practice, Welch builds a solid, accessible case against the belief that more screening always improves health care.
Review of the soon-to-be-released book, Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health.
Researchers at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine are studying the theory that nutrition and exercise can be affected by a person’s genetic makeup…The Studies question long-held beliefs about food selection and weight loss. For example, could 1,000 calories of turkey cause more weight gain in some people than 1,000 calories in cashews? If so, could a person lose weight through food selection without cutting calories?
For almost two decades, the CCFL [WHO Committee on Food Labeling] has dealt with the (unnecessarily) contentious issue of whether foods derived from crops modified with recombinant DNA technology should have to be labeled as such. The obvious question is whether these products are sufficiently unique or pose dangers that should require such labeling. The scientific community has known the answer for a very long time. As Nature editorialized in 1992, “the same physical and biological laws govern the response of organisms modified by modern molecular and cellular methods and those produced by classical methods…. [Therefore] no conceptual distinction exists between genetic modification of plants and microorganisms by classical methods or by molecular techniques that modify DNA and transfer genes”. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has explicitly rejected the labeling of food to indicate that it contains ingredients produced with recombinant DNA technology, as is the case for other genetic modification techniques.
Henry Miller, writing in Nature Biotechnology.
Scott Sumner writes: In “Babies by Design,” Ronald Green claims:
Studies of identical twins reared together or apart indicate that much obesity may be caused by hereditary factors. In technical terms, the heritability of obesity, the percentage of observed variation among people that is attributed to genes, is very high, somewhere between 50 and 80 percent.
There is also a kindness gene:
People with a certain gene trait are known to be more kind and caring than people without it, and strangers can quickly tell the difference, according to US research published on Monday.
The variation is linked to the body’s receptor gene of oxytocin, sometimes called the “love hormone” because it often manifests during sex and promotes bonding, empathy and other social behaviors.
Happiness is also genetic, according to an article in The Economist:
Serotonin is involved in mood regulation. Serotonin transporters are crucial to this job. The serotonin-transporter gene comes in two functional variants—long and short. The long one produces more transporter-protein molecules than the short one. People have two versions (known as alleles) of each gene, one from each parent. So some have two short alleles, some have two long ones, and the rest have one of each.
The adolescents in Dr. De Neve’s study were asked to grade themselves from very satisfied to very dissatisfied. Dr. De Neve found that those with one long allele were 8% more likely than those with none to describe themselves as very satisfied; those with two long alleles were 17% more likely.
So is empathy:
People who have two copies of the G allele are generally judged as more empathetic, trusting and loving.
Those with AG or AA genotypes tend to say they feel less positive overall, and feel less parental sensitivity. Previous research has shown they also may have a higher risk of autism.
