Featured

In the 1940s, C. H. Waddington discovered a peculiar phenomenon in fruit flies: traits could appear in response to environmental stress in an individual’s lifetime and then be passed down to future generations. Waddington proposed that this wasn’t the inheritance of acquired traits, but actually due to pre-existing genetic variation that had no effect until…

Dave Zucker, founder of startup FlySorter, talks about treating new positions as training, and how he builds his own community of colleagues from different fields. In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA…

As part of the Genetics Society of America’s renewed focus on early career members, Director of Engagement and Development Sonia Hall has created an innovative Early Career Scientist Leadership Program for graduate student and postdoc GSA members. Now that the Program is in full swing, Sonia talks about how it’s going and what has surprised…

Tom McFadden, science rapper and middle school science teacher, talks about the challenge of generating YouTube content that stimulates participation, and how scientists can improve their outreach ideas. In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you…

Over twenty years ago, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) let scientists successfully clone the first mammal—Dolly the sheep. Despite advances since then, the efficiency of this process remains low. In the July issue of G3, Srirattana and St. John report a method to deplete cattle donor cells of mitochondrial DNA and efficiently generate blastocysts from…

They rattle as warning, but during the hunt their strike is silent and sudden. Any rabbit or mouse targeted by a rattlesnake is doomed—the snake’s bite carries a paralyzing venom. The toxins in this venom are proteins encoded by a large gene family that arose by gene duplication. In the July issue of GENETICS, Margres…

Inheriting a trait from a grandparent doesn’t always involve their DNA sequences. In many organisms, some traits can be passed down for multiple generations via non-sequence based mechanisms, a phenomenon called transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. The most familiar example is that human disease risk might be influenced by the lifestyle of a person’s grandparents. But by…

Geneticists increasingly depend on highly specialized software and databases. Although it is vital to the field that these resources be well documented and their benefits widely disseminated, reports of new software and databases don’t always fit the mold of a typical research paper. The structure of a conventional research article forces authors to present their…

For the past 20 years, Ahna Skop has organized the Worm Art Show at the 21st International C. elegans Conference. These are the winners from #Worm17, which was held in June 2017 at UCLA. Click on any image to view it full size. Best In Show “Do you expect me to talk?” Beata Mierzwa (BeataScienceArt.com), Oegema and Desai Lab…

For people with alcohol dependence, withdrawal symptoms can cause relapse. Some physical symptoms—such as seizures, delirium tremens, and heart rhythm abnormalities—can be fatal, but even non-life-threatening symptoms like anxiety and confusion can trigger relapse. The changes in the nervous system that underlie withdrawal symptoms may involve ion channels in the Slo family. The function of…

In critical situations, communication can mean the difference between life and death. If our house goes up in flames, we don’t need to smell smoke to be alarmed as long as someone yells, “Fire!” This isn’t unique to humans; even creatures with much less sophisticated means of sharing information have ways of telling each other…