Lifeboat Foundation

Populations of indigenous people in southern Africa carry a gene that causes lighter skin, and scientists have now identified the rapid evolution of this gene in recent human history.

The gene that causes lighter skin pigmentation, SLC24A5, was introduced from eastern African to southern African populations just 2,000 years ago. Strong positive selection caused this gene to rise in frequency among some KhoeSan populations.

UC Davis anthropologist Brenna Henn and colleagues have shown that a gene for lighter skin spread rapidly among people in southern Africa in the last 2,000 years.

Continue reading “Rapid genetic evolution linked to lighter skin pigmentation in a southern African population” »

The team combines 1,200 scientists from 52 countries in disciplines ranging from geology and microbiology to chemistry and physics. A year before the conclusion of their 10-year study, they will present an amalgamation of findings to date before the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting opens this week.

Global team of scientists find ecosystem below earth that is twice the size of world’s oceans.

The NASA explorer’s initial discoveries might provide some insight into the early Solar System.

“The prospect of intervening in a profound way in human aging is still not seen as credible by the vast majority of thoughtful people around the world,”

Here’s the Inside Scoop from an Icon in the Longevity Field.

When water and lava collide, you’d better get out of the way.

by

• Jackson Ryan

We thought we knew everything about carbon. We were wrong.

The past few years have brought lots of good news for anyone who considers coffee a vice. Scientists have discovered that various compounds in coffee can help fight a number of diseases including Alzheimer’s, and now a new study is putting even more weight behind the notion that coffee is very good for you.

The work, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that not only does coffee battle Parkinson’s but also another incurable brain disease called Lewy body dementia. Conducted by scientists at Rutgers, the study points to the combined effects of caffeine and a fatty acid present in coffee called EHT as potentially playing key roles in disease fighting.

Advancement in technology will continue to impact the way we work, eat, and even take care of ourselves. A new report from Scientific American takes a look at some of the top emerging technologies that range from the field of biology to computer science. The publication’s chief science editor Seth Fletcher talked to Cheddar about what’s next when it comes to tech.

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Continue reading “The Future of Tech Will Change Everything From Food to Healthcare” »

After building AlphaGo to beat the world’s best Go players, Google DeepMind built AlphaZero to take on the world’s best machine players.