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Networks Untangle Malaria’s Deadly Shuffle

Veronique Greenwood Quanta Magazine
The world’s most dangerous malaria parasite shuffles its genes in a clever attempt to avoid the immune system. A new approach has begun to reveal how the process works.

That Stinky Cheese Is a Result of Evolutionary Overdrive

Carl Zimmer New York Times
By comparing the genomes of different species of molds scientists have reconstructed their history. On Thursday, the scientists reported that cheese makers unwittingly have thrown their molds into evolutionary overdrive.They haven’t simply gained new genetic mutations to help them grow better in cheese. Over the past few centuries, these molds also have picked up large chunks of DNA from other species in order to thrive in their new culinary habitat.

food

Nutrition Gets Personal

Clare Leschin-Hoar Future Food 2050
Dietary guidance that’s targeted to your precise genetic makeup is the wave of the future, says nutrition scientist Jeffrey Blumberg.

How Exercise Changes Our DNA

Gretchen Reynolds The New York Times
Exercise, a new study finds, changes the shape and functioning of our genes, an important stop on the way to improved health and fitness. More than 5,000 sites on the genome of muscle cells are altered by exercise.

Tracking Rare Tigers With DNA From Poop

Kashish Das Shrestha Sustainable Nepal
Bengal tigers can be elusive. They're classified as an endangered species, they're mostly nocturnal, and if they had their way, they wouldn't see many humans, either. Native to Southeast Asia, there are only an estimated 1,850 left in the wild. That makes counting them somewhat difficult—but researchers in Nepal have developed a system that they think will make it easier to figure out how many tigers live there. It works for other species as well.
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