Category Archives: Genetics

Three papers: January 13-19, 2019

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

Three papers that caught my attention this week in the world of human evolution: * “Limits of long-term selection against Neandertal introgression.” Petr Martin, Svante Pääbo, Janet Kelso, and Benjamin Vernot It is now well-established the early “modern” humans (that … Continue reading →

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A Tale of Two Maps: Ancient DNA and Ancient Hominins

Posted on January 6, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

A while back Chris Stringer linked to a wonderful interactive map on twitter. Still being updated, a great resource by ⁦@nickyrozenblatt⁩ mapping published ancient genomes + sources https://t.co/WFCZRNOw8O — Chris Stringer (@ChrisStringer65) December 12, 2018 The map, put together by … Continue reading →

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Moving Beyond Trees: Metaphors for Evolution

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Adam Van Arsdale

…for there is some one entity (or more than one) which always persists and from which all other things are generated. All are not agreed, however, as to the number and character of these principles. Thales, the founder of this … Continue reading →

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The importance of 300,000 year old cave bear mtDNA

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

A just released paper in PNAS that reconstructs the mitochondrial DNA of a >300,000 year old cave bear lineage is getting some attention…and for good reason (Dabney, et al., 2013). You might wonder who cares about ancient cave bear lineages … Continue reading →

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Breaking: SCOTUS releases Myriad decision (gene patent case)

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

Full text of decision here (pdf), more thoughts from me later… Background on Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. (SCOTUSblog) From the opinion (Justice Thomas writing for the unanimous decision, with Justice Scalia concurring, in part, and writing … Continue reading →

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Privacy is a societal issue, not a personal one

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

The recent SCOTUS decision in the Maryland v. King case has produced a lot of interesting follow-up commentaries. A sampling of a few of them are linked below: Panopticon, keep your eyes on the word (Ronald Collins, SCOTUSBlog) DNA Fingerprinting … Continue reading →

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Room for Debate: Gene patents

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

This week’s NY Times “Room for Debate” segment is focused on gene patents. With a SCOTUS ruling expected any day on the issue in the Myriad case, this is something that will likely be in the news. Check it out.

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Maryland v. King: Another step towards a DNA age

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

I am not a legal expert. What follows is in no way intended to be a legal exegesis of the arguments at stake in the recently decided Maryland v King supreme court case. However, I do know something about genomics … Continue reading →

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Breaking: Supreme court rules against DNA privacy

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

With June here, the Supreme Court is beginning to release their opinions on this term’s cases. One of the first announced this morning is the case of Maryland v. King (I wrote about the case earlier). At stake is whether … Continue reading →

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What I am attempting to read today…

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

…before returning to the field. Properties and rates of germline mutations in humans (C.D. Campbell, E.E. Eichler) Trends in Genetics, 17 May 2013, 10.1016/j.tig.2013.04.005 ABSTRACT: All genetic variation arises via new mutations; therefore, determining the rate and biases for different … Continue reading →

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