Ancestry genetics, inheritance patterns, founder effects, consumer testing, and family-history-relevant research.
39 stories · Last updated
A bioRxiv preprint analyses MRI and genetic data from nearly 35,000 adults to identify variants associated with the distinctive rounded head shape of Homo sapiens and places the findings within the context of recent human evolution.
A bioRxiv preprint analyses mitochondrial genomes from ancient Belizean sites to trace demographic change and migration across the Maya lowlands and into the Caribbean.
A bioRxiv preprint combining microsatellites and mitochondrial sequencing across 760 Geoffroy's bats reveals female philopatry alongside male-mediated gene flow, with implications for conservation of this threatened species.
A preprint describes development and analytical validation of a quantitative PCR TaqMan assay for detecting dugong environmental DNA, tested in both aquarium settings and wild populations across Australia and the Arabian Gulf.
A bioRxiv preprint presents population-genetic evidence that a common STING allele impairing innate antiviral immunity was selected outside Africa and may have contributed to catastrophic post-Columbian smallpox mortality.
Researchers examining APOE isoform effects across diverse human populations report that the ε4 allele's associations with cholesterol biology and disease risk differ markedly depending on environmental context.
A genetically humanised mouse study finds that the human accelerated region HACNS1 speeds up craniofacial development while slowing limb development, implicating regulatory enhancers in the evolution of human-specific developmental timing.
A bioRxiv preprint examines genetic signatures of inbreeding, drift, and founder effects in naturally small island populations of a large vertebrate, probing how such populations persist despite textbook extinction risks.
A preprint uses the embedded retroviral sequence K111 as a genomic marker to reveal how the nucleolar organiser regions on human acrocentric chromosomes have expanded and diversified relative to other great apes.
A preprint using whole-genome sequencing of 27 residents of Grecia Salentina, a Greek-dialect-speaking area of Puglia, attempts to distinguish between ancient and mediaeval Greek settlement as the origin of the community's linguistic and genomic identity.
A medical student opinion piece in Stat News argues that the alcohol-flushing response common in people of East Asian ancestry reflects ALDH2 variant biology and that its health implications are under-communicated in clinical settings.
A preprint reports 23 new Yersinia pestis genomes from Second Plague Pandemic contexts across Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Armenia, spanning roughly 270 years of post-Black Death epidemics.
A preprint drawing on five years of large-scale monitoring in the Czech Republic and Slovakia describes substantial range shifts, novel sympatric zones, and asymmetric gene flow between historically distinct wolf populations.
An analysis of thousands of animal genomes suggests chromosomal rearrangements across 600 million years of evolution are far from random, instead channelling through a constrained set of one-way trajectories.
A bioRxiv preprint describes how the Elston–Stewart algorithm can be adapted to calculate exact pedigree-based match probabilities for Y-chromosomal STR profiles, addressing a longstanding challenge in forensic genetics.
A bioRxiv preprint presents genome-wide data from nine newly reported individuals spanning the Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic Balkans, revealing a pan-European genetic legacy from the region's Last Glacial Maximum refugium.
Researchers present admixslug, a method for analysing low-quality archaic human genomes under high modern-human contamination, and apply it to the Teshik-Tash 1 child — the south-easternmost known Neandertal.
A preprint analysing genome-wide data from the Arras Culture of Middle Iron Age northeast England, including 390 individuals from Wetwang, finds evidence for matrilineal descent and recurrent unions between dominant matrilines.
A preprint using Israeli registry data provides the first country-scale empirical estimate of how often forensic investigative genetic genealogy can link an unknown individual to a relative in a consumer genomic database.
Chromosomal analysis of sika and red deer in Denmark finds variable Robertsonian translocations in sika that could prevent fertile first-generation hybrids, with implications for EU invasive-species policy.
Genomic analysis has identified signatures of introgression from two distinct extinct human populations beyond the Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions already known from ancient DNA research.
An analysis of more than three million Wikipedia revisions across nearly 7,000 pages finds genetics terminology is disproportionately concentrated in articles about nationality and ethnicity, raising questions about how research on human genetic diversity is synthesised for public audiences.
A genome-wide study has calculated the koala's mutation rate for the first time and traced all living koalas to a small ancestral population that endured a climate-driven bottleneck long before human settlement of Australia.
A bioRxiv preprint reports that platypus and echidna carry novel DMRT gene arrangements, filling gaps in understanding of how this conserved sex-determination gene family evolved across vertebrates.
A preprint combining SNP array genotyping and whole-genome sequencing has detected a previously undescribed local genetic cluster of Ostrea edulis along French Atlantic and Channel coasts, with implications for conservation translocation programmes.
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