Ancestry genetics, inheritance patterns, founder effects, consumer testing, and family-history-relevant research.
14 stories · Last updated
A benchmarking study challenges the standard practice of removing related individuals before demographic inference, showing that close relatives carry useful signal about recent population history.
Researchers describe a regulatory element within the Tibetan adaptive EPAS1 haplotype that shows blunted hypoxia response and is also active in adipocytes, suggesting cold-climate adaptation may be part of the same selective sweep.
A preprint screening 487 skeletal samples from Classic Period Maya sites uses genetic kinship analysis to connect high-status tomb occupants with individuals whose remains were deposited in geographically separate cave contexts.
A bioRxiv preprint reports that a betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase gene, LsBADH1, is responsible for the production of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline — the compound behind the characteristic sweet fragrance of certain lettuce cultivars.
A new actively maintained mtDNA reference tree incorporating hundreds of thousands of sequences replaces the retired PhyloTree resource and substantially increases haplogroup resolution for population and ancestry research.
Research described by ScienceDaily suggests that Earth's earliest animals may have held back their own evolutionary diversification through asexual reproduction, and that environmental pressures favouring sexual reproduction were associated with a subsequent acceleration in biodiversity.
A new computational tool, PEC, reconciles pedigree records against SNP-chip genotype data using linkage disequilibrium blocks and haplotype matching, offering improved accuracy and efficiency for livestock and research pedigrees.
A bioRxiv preprint combining ancient DNA genomics with a new interdisciplinary burial-rite database reports that cultural affiliation accounts for the majority of spatiotemporal variation in prehistoric mortuary practices.
Analysis of thousands of Japanese genomes reveals evidence for a distinct ancestral component linked to the ancient Emishi people, challenging the long-held dual-origins model of Japanese population history.
Genome-wide data from 19 individuals on Hispaniola, including four from the earliest pre-Ceramic Lithic Age occupation, reveal a single ancestry source for early Caribbean populations and affinities to Central and South America.
A bioRxiv preprint presents kinference, a tool designed to identify closely related pairs of individuals for Close-Kin Mark-Recapture analyses, a genomic approach increasingly used to estimate population size and demography in fish and wildlife management.
Theoretical work on bioRxiv extends population genetic models to describe how a sudden reduction in population size alters the exposure of deleterious recessive alleles to selection and the long-term trajectory of inbreeding depression.
A review article in Nature Genetics surveys how ancient genomic data have transformed understanding of which genetic variants were favoured by natural selection across human prehistory.
Researchers studying genetic data from diverse African groups, including the Nama people, find evidence that modern humans evolved from multiple interconnected populations rather than a single ancestral source.
About Genetic Current
Genetic Current is the news section of Evagene, an academic, research, and educational pedigree-modelling platform. Stories are AI-drafted summaries of items from trusted public sources, written for researchers, clinicians, educators, students, genealogists, and patients with an interest in genetics. Summaries are for educational and research purposes only and are not medical advice.
Join the Evagene Alpha Waiting List