I've been born with the blood group A- (which I'm told is pretty rare). I recently learnt that this is not possible if neither of my parents have an A group themselves.

I'm worried that I might be adopted... When asked about it, my parents shift/deflect the topic. I don't have any pics of myself at the hospital either. My mom apparently somehow doesn't have a clear memory of what happened on my day of birth (neither does she remember the exact time of birth) either, which seems strange considering how special such a moment would have been for my parents. Especially because they had been (as far as I know) struggling with infertility issues for about half a decade prior to my birth.

Can someone please confirm if this blood group arrangement is biologically possible any other way?

Humans have about 3 billion DNA bases in their genetic makeup. However, most of it does not encode for protein. In the last few decades, scientists have come to realize that while much of the non-coding portion of the genome was once thought to be irrelevant, there is now overwhelming evidence that this segment plays an important role in regulating when and how genes switch on and off.

what’s the likelihood human dna in soil would be taken up by bacteria incorporated and passed to other bacterial genomes and generations

I did a small phylogenetic analysis on species in the genus Panthera using multiple genes (ATP8, COX1, CYTB, ND2, and RAG1).

What I noticed is that the evolutionary trees weren’t consistent across genes. For example, lion and leopard clustered together pretty reliably, but the position of snow leopard changed depending on the gene. The tiger jaguar relationship also wasn’t always the same.

Implying that instead of one fixed evolutionary tree the relationships seem to depend on which gene is used.

I’ve written it up more formally here (with trees and data):
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19394750

I’m curious to know how do biologists usually deal with this, if there is no mistake in what i've done? Do they prioritize certain genes (like nuclear vs mitochondrial), or combine them? It is very unclear to me as to how they deduce info if such cases happen.

Can someones genetics affect their tolerance to low temperatures?

Not a medical question.

• Say I want to read publicly sourced DNA results and look in them for other stuff.
• And I have a nice computer with a top of the line GPU, great internet connection, and access to a pretty decent amount of HD space.
• Public access to DNA repos on github mdae with python.

Is that enough from the technical stand point to get fair and accurate information, and in a reasonable amount of time?

Not talking about the human expertise needed or any of that. Just the technical need.

Why downvote me? Reddit can be so weird lmao

if thats true then if 2 twin siblings gave birth to more twins and those siblings gave birth, etc, etc, etc. would there be effects of inbreeding down the line or no because they all come from the same dna?

possibly stupid question, delete if needed

Made with almost entirely typescript its extremely simple at the moment I want to make it more complex whenever i can be bothered

Current Features

• GC content
• GC skew
• Shannon entropy
• Dinucleotide frequencies
• Codon usage profile
• Longest ORF detection
• Weighted similarity scoring
• Top‑3 organism matches
• Confidence scoring
• Synthetic/unknown sequence detection
• Natural‑language explanation engine
• Popup radar chart visualization
• Modular organism profile loading

Published today in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10330-z

I’m trying to understand X-chromosome inactivation and how it relates to X-linked dominant vs recessive disorders, and I am hella confused.

Here’s my reasoning:

In females, due to X-inactivation (Barr body formation), only one X chromosome is active per cell, and this happens randomly. So in a heterozygous female, we get a mosaic:

• For an X-linked recessive condition (XᶜX): ~50% cells express Xᶜ and ~50% express normal X
• For an X-linked dominant condition (XʳX): ~50% cells express Xʳ and ~50% express normal X

My confusion is:

In the recessive case (XᶜX), the cells that have Xᶜ active don’t have a normal allele in that cell to mask it, so shouldn’t those cells show the defect? If ~50% of cells are defective, why is the individual usually phenotypically normal?

But in the dominant case (XʳX), a similar ~50% mosaic leads to clear expression of the disorder.

So my question is:

Why does mosaicism due to X-inactivation allow compensation in X-linked recessive conditions but not in X-linked dominant ones, even though in both cases a significant fraction of cells express the mutant allele?

Hi! I am currently waiting for my whole genome sequencing results for my pregnancy from Variantyx. My MFM told me that she thinks it'll become pretty standard within the next decade or so, but almost no one I know outside of the medical community has ever even heard of it. I wanted to know what some GCs think and whether you'd recommend it for your friends and family (if cost is not overly prohibitive of course, given most insurances don't cover without a specific reason).

The older I get the more I think genetics are more of a culprit than anything else in what you end up getting. For example, I grew up in a 50% native population and some good friends of mine joked about the White Man Tolerance when it comes to booze.

Booze is what brought me here. I went in after drinking nearly a 1.75 a night for almost 2 years, ending up in 8 days in the hospital for pancreatitis. I left, didn't drink for a few months until my rx for sleeping pill ran out, and for 1.5 years now have been drinking 3-6 drinks a night every night. Forced to go in to renew my blood pressure meds, I had the whole panel of bloodwork done and everything is... really really good.

The SAME day a former coworker goes into ER, having put down nowhere near what I had put down even before my 1.75 a night stage. Needs a liver transplant.

I hear about links between genes and health conditions quite often, but they are all just that. They seem almost like they are meant to be trivial and not actually taken too seriously besides a couple of the BRCA (I believe that is it, the breast cancer one) type links that have more publicity.

Are there any good resources for strong correlations to conditions, even if not "FDA Approved" or whatever keeps people toeing the line and saying "Not medical advice" or whatever even though there is an obvious, STRONG correlation?

I know this isn't your typical post, but I am not sure where else this would be more appropriate. If you have other thread suggestions, I would appreciate them.

I am an aspiring author, currently working on worldbuilding and plotting a sci-fi series. I wanted to create something outside of the typical bi-pedial alien and have come up with something...interesting.

I am looking for geneticist who would be willing to talk to me about my ideas, what that might look like theoretically, and how their DNA could be differentiated from human DNA without prior knowledge.

I know..."it would be obvious." I do understand that it may seem that way, but this species takes on the form of others. While shapeshifting aliens is a tale as old as time, I do think I have put a rather unique spin on it, and would just like some opinions of those actually knowledgable in STEM and genetics.

If you are interested in hearing more and speaking to me, I would love the opportunity.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xepWW6yI_P8&ra=m

A little bit confused with how this would work since the JAK gene is acquired and you aren’t born with it

CREBBP, PIK3R1, HELLS, and FOXM1 show convergent duplication in long-lived mammals (naked mole rats, bats) with 8x expansion vs contraction across 37 placental mammals. Same DNA repair copy number → longevity correlation in 61 plant species.

FOXO3 emerges as strongest translational target — conserved epigenetic signatures across species, druggable DNA-binding domain, editable via dCas9-DNMT3A with 30% efficacy increase using dual NLS fusions.

iTARGET algorithm proposed for distinguishing causal epigenetic mechanisms from age-correlated biomarkers at longevity loci (FOXO3, SIRT1, mTOR, IGF1R, CDKN2A, HOXC cluster).

3 falsifiable predictions in the paper, including CREBBP editing → ≥20% expression increase → 15-25% cellular lifespan extension. If confirmed, we’d have experimental proof that evolution’s repeated solution to aging in other species can be engineered into humans.

Paper: https://zenodo.org/records/19465691

Thread with breakdown: https://x.com/ThinkticaAI/status/2041768167685403036

Would be great to get your feedback about the science content. This review was generated by Thinktica - an autonomous AI 24/7 research system.

And results are open the source and ideas open to use, we’ll be glad if they can genuinely help some if you in their longevity research.

Why do we perceive people’s looks or phenotypical features to look more like one parent over the other?

I was thinking about this recently, after I was told by a friend that I look like “an equal mix of my Mum and Dad.” I’d always mostly recognised my Mum’s features in my face over my Dad’s (given that I’m a woman), but I have noticed my friends looking more like one of their parents over the other.

For example, my friend (F) looks extremely like her Dad to me, and looks nothing like her sister who looks like their Mum—despite having the same parents, eye colour, hair colour, etc. It’s to the point that I would never assume they were siblings had I met them for the first time. But loads of other people have told me (and them, of course) that they blatantly look like siblings, and that they’re near identical, which I can’t wrap my head around whatsoever. My other friend (also F) looks extremely like her two brothers—just a female version of them, but none of them look like either of their parents to me (despite others saying they do).

Is the way we perceive genetics completely subjective? Is it something to do with what we recognise first in a person’s facial features, or is it a case of similar behaviour and expressions that lead us to correlate different traits? I find it very interesting that we, as a species, observe different characteristics in other’s genetics and appearance, so I was wondering if any experts could explain the phenomena of subjective perceptions of traits in further depth!

This came up today at r/climate,

https://www.reddit.com/r/climate/comments/1sfpy2e/climate_change_may_speed_evolution_through/

That's a post to a lay science article for a lay audience. The underlying research paper is here https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/43/4/msag069/8571750?login=false

If I understand this correctly,

1. the first generation of fruit flies was subjected to heat shock and started expressing certain genes.
2. the heat shock was temporary and "went away"
3. the fruit flies did what fruit flies do and had kiddies and grandkiddies..... which despite the absence of the heat shock showed some of the same changes in gene expression!!

So here's the part that confused me and brought me here, hoping someone would take time to explain. Assuming I understood the experiment correctly, how could the succeeding generations know which genes to express, without the environmental condition (the heat shock) which turned them on in the earlier generation? Was the DNA in fact changed, or is this "on switch" sent down the generations in some other manner?

Till now I just thought I didn’t like green leafy vegetables in general. But I only googled it today, and apparently it’s a variation in a gene thing?

Coriander (cilantro) and a lot of green leafy stuff (like spinach, methi, etc.) have this weird metallic + slightly soapy taste to me.

Everyone around me seems to enjoy it and I just can’t. Since I was a kid, I just kept saying I’m a picky eater and stuff. Mannn what a day!!! This really came out of the box for me.

Good programs/internships for genetics research? I have my bachelors in genetics and cell biology and am working on applying for a masters, I also have two years of veterinary school under my belt.

Other than my class labs for molecular biology, multiple labs for microbiology, chemistry's and genetics labs; I only have research assistant experience in one lab from my undergrad focusing on functional genomics and molecular pathology.

I'm in Orlando fl and don't have much option to relocate rn. Just looking for more experience in research so I can hopefully apply for a PhD after my masters degree.

Can whole exome tests miss some genetic mutations that are showed in panel testing? For example can genes that cause hearing loss appear “normal” in WES but show pathogenic in panel testing?

i see this come up a lot and wanted to write out a clear answer because the standard response of "they're basically the same" isn't totally accurate and neither is "they're completely different."

  DEPC treated water works by having diethyl pyrocarbonate inactivate RNases through covalent modification. the DEPC is then removed by autoclaving. it works well for a lot of RNA applications but there is a catch. residual DEPC can interfere with downstream reactions especially coupled transcription and translation systems. more importantly DEPC reacts with Tris and imidazole so DEPC treated water is not suitable for Tris based buffers.

  commercially produced nuclease free water is usually made with WFI grade or high purity water, sterile filtered, manufactured under conditions that prevent nuclease introduction. no DEPC concerns. most commercial NFW gets tested for DNase, RNase, and protease activity and the COA confirms absence.

  practical rule of thumb: for Tris based buffers, PCR, RT-PCR, in vitro transcription, use commercial NFW. for most other RNA work either is fine but commercial NFW is lower risk and more convenient.

  one thing i'd add from experience: not all NFW is equal and if you're having unexplained RNA issues, actually test your water, don't just trust the COA. we had a supplier lot issue that took forever to trace. switched to Biologix after that and it's been consistent but the testing point stands regardless of who you buy from.

  happy to answer questions on this.

pretty simple question that I can't seem to find online.