Evolutionary History of Chimpanzees Inferred from Complete Mitochondrial Genomes

The authors use mitochondrial genomes from fecal DNA to infer an evolutionary history (i.e. divergence dates) of the four subspecies of chimpanzees.

Initial impact of the sequencing of the human genome

Nice Lander review article (good for ANTH204)

Janet Rowley on discovery research (aka fishing)

Q. Do you think that the type of career you’ve had would be possible today?

A. No. I was doing observationally driven research. That’s the kiss of death if you’re looking for funding today. We’re so fixated now on hypothesis-driven research that if you do what I did, it would be called a “fishing expedition,” a bad thing.

O.K., we knew about the Philadelphia chromosome, and after banding we had the technology to discover gains and losses among the different chromosomes. But once you knew that, what were the implications of the gains and losses? That’s the “fishing,” because there wasn’t a hypothesis.

Well, if you don’t know anything, you can’t have a sensible hypothesis.

I keep saying that fishing is good. You’re fishing because you want to know what’s there.

MITF: the power and the glory

what a title...

Nucleosomes Containing Methylated DNA Stabilize DNA Methyltransferases 3A/3B and Ensure Faithful Epigenetic Inheritance

avpr1a and social monogamy in free-living prairie voles

Another reminder that what we see in the field isn't necessarily what we see in the lab...

Friendship and shared genes

"...people's friends may not only have similar traits, but actually resemble each other on a genotypic level."

Cool study on relationships between behavior, personality, and genetics in humans.

Correlated genotypes in friendship networks; PNAS 2011