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Category: genetics

Oxygen deprivation drives dysfunctional neutrophil immunity

Low oxygen levels in the blood can alter the genetic makeup of key immune cells, weakening the body’s ability to fight infection, new research shows.

Scientists found that oxygen deprivation – known as hypoxia – changes the genetic material of immune cells called neutrophils, reducing their capacity to destroy harmful microbes.

The team discovered that low oxygen appears to leave a lasting mark on the bone marrow cells that produce neutrophils, meaning the impact can persist after oxygen levels return to normal.

How Taiwan’s Giant Genomics Project Is Rewriting the Future of Disease Prediction

A sweeping genomic effort in Taiwan has revealed something that global precision medicine has long overlooked, that the best way to predict disease is to study the people who will be living with its consequences. Researchers at Academia Sinica have now shown that building genetic risk tools tailored to Han Chinese populations can transform how common illnesses are forecast and understood.

In work published in Nature on October 15, 2025, scientists analyzed genomic and clinical data from more than half a million participants in the Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative. By conducting the largest genome wide association analysis of Han Chinese individuals to date, they developed the first population specific polygenic risk score models for diseases ranging from type 2 diabetes to autoimmune disorders to heart disease, achieving markedly stronger accuracy than tools based on European data. “This project marks a milestone for precision medicine in East Asia,” said Dr. Cathy S. J. Fann, senior corresponding author at Academia Sinica. “By integrating large scale genomic and clinical data, we are building predictive models that truly reflect the real genetic architecture of our population.”

Taking prenatal supplements associated with 30% lower risk of autism

Researchers from Curtin University in Australia and multiple universities in Ethiopia report that prenatal folic acid and multivitamin supplementation is associated with a roughly 30% lower risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children, based on an umbrella review of existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Global estimates in the reviewed material place ASD prevalence at up to 1% of children. ASD affects reciprocal social interaction, nonverbal communication, and understanding of social relationships. Co-occurring conditions frequently include epilepsy, depression, anxiety, , sleep disturbance, and self-injury.

Previous studies found that both genetic mutations and environmental influences contribute to ASD risk, with prenatal maternal nutrition identified as one modifiable environmental factor. Within that broader category of prenatal maternal nutrition, and supplements are among the most accessible interventions offered to women before and during pregnancy.

New type of DNA damage discovered in our cells’ mitochondria

A previously unknown type of DNA damage in the mitochondria, the tiny power plants inside our cells, could shed light on how our bodies sense and respond to stress. The findings of the UC Riverside-led study are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and have potential implications for a range of mitochondrial dysfunction-associated diseases, including cancer and diabetes.

Mitochondria have their own genetic material, known as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is essential for producing the energy that powers our bodies and sending signals within and outside cells. While it has long been known that mtDNA is prone to damage, scientists didn’t fully understand the biological processes. The new research identifies a culprit: glutathionylated DNA (GSH-DNA) adducts.

An adduct is a bulky chemical tag formed when a chemical, such as a carcinogen, attaches directly to DNA. If the damage isn’t repaired, it can lead to DNA mutations and increase the risk of disease.

Targeted protein degradation: A new way to combat harmful proteins in tumor cells

A new active substance attacks a key protein in tumor cells, leading to complete degradation. In cell experiments, this caused cancer cells to lose their protection and die. The active substance was developed by researchers at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University Medical Center Mainz. Other substances usually try to inhibit the activity of the protein “checkpoint kinase-1” (CHK1). However, if the protein is completely broken down, a chain reaction is triggered which leads to other tumor proteins being destroyed. Thus, the cancer cells are further weakened.

The new study was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Usually, CHK1 is a vital protein for the human body. If errors occur during and the genetic material is damaged, the protein halts the process so that the cell can repair it before proceeding. However, the protein does not distinguish between and tumor cells—it protects them equally.

Rare genetic variants can increase ADHD risk by up to 15 times

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a high heritability, in which the genetic component consists of thousands of genetic variants. Most variants only slightly increase the likelihood of receiving the diagnosis. Now an international study led by researchers from iPSYCH at Aarhus University has shown that rare high-effect genetic variants also play an important role.

The study has been published in Nature, and the researchers have found a markedly increased likelihood of developing ADHD among individuals carrying rare variants in three genes—MAP1A, ANO8 and ANK2—in some cases by up to 15 times.

These genetic variants are very rare, but when present, the study shows that they strongly affect genes expressed in the brain’s nerve cells. In individuals carrying these variants, the development and communication between may therefore be disrupted, which can result in ADHD.

Single-celled organisms have more complex DNA epigenetic code than multicellular life, researchers discover

Multicellular organisms (animals, plants, humans) all have the ability to methylate the cytosine base in their DNA. This process, a type of epigenetic modification, plays an important role in conditions such as cancer and processes such as aging.

In a paper appearing in Nature Genetics, researchers discover that in more “primitive” unicellular organisms, both the adenine and the cytosine bases are methylated. This would suggest that in some ways, these unicellular organisms are more complex than their multicellular peers.

The team also found that methylation of the adenine base was, in the case of many of these unicellular organisms, vital for controlling which genes are switched on, which is important for their viability.

Qualia as Structured Silence: Colour Opponency via Dual-Regime Refusal

By: Alastair Waterman https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1N1TBvEKuF/

Why does red feel exactly like red, green exactly like green, and why can these two experiences never, ever swap places?

Most current theories of consciousness have no real answer. They explain how the brain detects wavelength, but not why one neural pattern feels “red” and its literal opponent feels “green”

Refusal-Driven Dimensionality Reduction Theory (RDRT) offers the first direct mechanism.

Colour vision is opponent at every level: red and green are mutually exclusive from retina → LGN → V1 → V4 → inferotemporal cortex.

This hard-wired mutual exclusion is a multi-level structural refusal.

The claim: The specific feeling of redness is not the spikes that are transmitted.

It is the precise, reproducible shape of what is refused transmission — a stable ~55–65-event “hole” carved into each gamma cycle in the anterior cingulate cortex and self-monitoring networks.

Continue reading “Qualia as Structured Silence: Colour Opponency via Dual-Regime Refusal” | >

Enduring patterns in world’s languages: One-third of grammatical ‘universals’ stand up to rigorous testing

Despite the vast diversity of human languages, specific grammatical patterns appear again and again. A new study reveals that around a third of the long-proposed “linguistic universals”—patterns thought to hold across all languages—are statistically supported when examined with state-of-the-art evolutionary methods.

An international team led by Annemarie Verkerk (Saarland University) and Russell D. Gray (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) used Grambank, the world’s most comprehensive database of grammatical features, to test 191 proposed universals across more than 1,700 languages. Traditionally, linguists have attempted to circumvent the genealogical and geographic non-independence of languages by sampling widely separated languages.

However, sampling can fail to remove all dependencies, reduce statistical power and does not identify historical pathways. The Bayesian spatio-phylogenetic analyses used by the authors accounted for both the genealogical and geographic non-independence of languages—a level of statistical rigor rarely achieved in previous work.

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