Sarah Zhang
What It Means to Name a Forgotten Murder Victim
Thirteen years ago, a young woman was found dead in small-town Texas. She was nicknamed “Lavender Doe” for the purple shirt she was wearing. Her real identity would remain a mystery until amateur genealogists took up her case.
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BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images The Disappearing Y Chromosome
It’s surprisingly common for men to start losing entire chromosomes from blood cells as they age.
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Courtesy of Chuang Zhao Why Mammals Are So Good at Hearing (And Chewing)
Before an evolutionary breakthrough, the tiny bones of ears were part of the jaw.
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Public domain A Hint About the Affliction That Kept Marat in the Bathtub
Ever since the French revolutionary’s assassination in a bathtub, doctors and scientists have wondered why he had to spend so much time in there to begin with.
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Ron Wooten The Secret Identity of a Coyote-Like Creature
A photographer began shooting unusual-looking coyotes on Galveston Island. They turned out to be descended from a very rare wolf species.
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Steve Ruark / AP An Invader’s Less-Than-Elegant Move From Water to Land
The much-maligned northern snakehead fish might be less menacing than it was made out to be.
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Image courtesy of Norman Russell The Chickens That Are Surrogates for Rare Breeds
A new way to revive rare breeds—and perhaps even endangered birds—from frozen cells
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Alain Nogues / Getty It’s Possible to Inherit More DNA From One Parent Than the Other
23andMe’s 4-million-person database reveals how many people are living with undetected chromosomal anomalies.
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Jae C. Hong / AP The Messy Consequences of the Golden State Killer Case
Tools meant to reunite families are now being “used essentially to get families to put their members in jail.”
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Courtesy of Holly Becker / The Atlantic A Woman’s AncestryDNA Test Revealed a Medical Secret
As a cancer patient, she had received cord-blood cells from an anonymous donor. The DNA from those cells led her to him.
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Africa Studio / besttv / Shutterstock / Katie ... A Human Liver Can Be Cooled to –4 Degrees Celsius and Survive
A new technique can preserve the organ outside the human body for at least 27 hours.
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Vasant Shinde A Burst of Clues to South Asians’ Genetic Ancestry
A tiny ear bone from more than 4,000 years ago is shaping the story of migration and heritage in India.
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Chip Simons / Getty The Patient Who Finally Knows Why Her UTIs Won’t Go Away
Urinary-tract infections were once easy to cure. Then they started becoming resistant to antibiotics.
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Courtesy of L. England A Single Male Cat’s Reign of Terror
In Australia, one cat seems to have destroyed an entire bird sanctuary.
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Courtesy of the Lawrence County Coroner's Office / ... She Was Found Strangled in a Well, and Now She Has a Name
Using DNA, genealogists finally confirmed the identity of the “Belle in the Well,” found 38 years ago.
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Jana Bulantová / Creative Commons What Tick Saliva Does to the Human Body
Ticks use their saliva to create a “lake of blood” inside their hosts.
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Victoria Neer / Getty The Quietly Changing Consensus on Neutering Dogs
A growing body of research has documented the health risks of getting certain breeds fixed early—so why aren’t shelters changing their policies?
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Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane IVF Mix-Ups Have Broken the Definition of Parenthood
When a New York woman gave birth to twins after IVF, neither baby was related to her, or to each other.
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National Park Service / Associated Press A Surprising Idea About the Risks of Extinction
The tiny population of wolves on Isle Royale descended from a much larger group. What if that helped doom them?
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Joerg Sarbach / AP The Hospital Is Too Damn Loud
The average hospitalized patient endures 350 alarms each day.
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Lois S. Wiggs / CDC Should Human Feces Be Regulated Like a Drug?
A fecal-transplant patient has unexpectedly died just as the FDA is deciding the future of the unconventional procedure.
