DNA

DNA study provides insight into how to live longer

The researchers say a person loses two months for every kilogram overweight they are - and seven years for smoking a packet of cigarettes a day.

Unusually, the Edinburgh university team found their answers by analysing differences in people's genetic code or DNA.

Ultimately they think it will reveal new ways of helping us to live longer.

The group used the genetic code of more than 600,000 people who are taking part in a natural, yet massive, experiment.

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DNA surgery on embryos removes disease

The team at Sun Yat-sen University used a technique called base editing to correct a single error out of the three billion "letters" of our genetic code.

They altered lab-made embryos to remove the disease beta-thalassemia. The embryos were not implanted.

The team says the approach may one day treat a range of inherited diseases.

Think you're right handed? Try this test

No matter where you are in the world, most people use their right hand for most things. More than 85 per cent of us are right-handed — even foetuses at 10 weeks preferentially move their right hand.

And the preference seems to be just a human thing — our close relatives the apes are split right down the middle on the left/right-handedness. Fifty per cent of them are lefties.

Test yourself

How your life could change the cells of your grandkids

We explain what the new science of epigenetics means for your children and grandchildren.

Everyone's heard of the genome: that double helix DNA code that is uniquely yours, unless you happen to have an identical twin. But there's another layer of complexity responsible for creating us — and that's the epigenome.

Your epigenome sits in your cells with your genome. It's a set of instructions that decides which bits of your DNA are activated, or which genes are switched on or off.

Scientists store an Operating System, a Movie and a Computer Virus on DNA

Just last year, Microsoft purchased 10 Million strands of synthetic DNA from San Francisco DNA synthesis startup called Twist Bioscience and collaborated with researchers from the University of Washington to focus on using DNA as a data storage medium.

However, in the latest experiments, a pair of researchers from Columbia University and the New York Genome Center (NYGC) have come up with a new technique to store massive amounts of data on DNA, and the results are marvelous.

Smoking 'causes hundreds of DNA changes'

Having sequenced thousands of tumour genomes, they found a 20-a-day smoker would rack up an average of 150 mutations in every lung cell each year.

The changes are permanent, and persist even if someone gives up smoking.

Researchers say analysing tumour DNA may help explain the underlying causes of other cancers.

Pamela Pugh, 69, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2013. She started smoking aged 17 and quit in her early 50s.

But she said: "Even though I gave up many years ago, the effects of smoking caught up with me.

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