The Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, identified all 3 billion letters of genetic code that together control the development of a person. But human DNA is but a small portion of the DNA in every human. There are 10 times as many microbial cells in every person as human cells. And though they...
It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to b...
Astronaut Daniel Tani, orbiting Earth aboard the international space station, learned Wednesday that his mother had died in a car crash, marking what NASA officials believe is the first time a crew member has lost a close family member while in flight.
WASHINGTON -- People's bodies are home to trillions of bacteria, fungi and other microbes, organisms that live on our skin, in our noses, in our digestive tracts.
Responding to consumer queasiness about eating meat and drinking milk from cloned animals, and frustrated by continued delays in the government approval process, the nation's two largest cloning companies will today roll out a voluntary program aimed at helping shoppers avoid food from clones.
A jet of highly charged radiation from a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy is blasting another galaxy nearby -- an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before.
Nearly four decades ago, psychologist Stanley Milgram had a volunteer stand stock still on a busy New York sidewalk and look up at the sky. About one in every 25 passersby stopped to look up, too. When five volunteers were recruited to sky-gaze, nearly one in five passersby stopped to look up.
NEW YORK The first time Neil deGrasse Tyson got a good look at the universe, he thought it was a hoax. He was a 9-year-old, visiting the Hayden Planetarium on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and when the lights went down and a narrated tour of the night sky began, an ocean of stars twinkled overhead.
NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Dec. 15 -- Organizers of the international climate conference here presented an open-ended compromise proposal to delegates from 190 nations early Saturday in hopes of bridging disagreements over how to begin negotiating a new treaty to combat global warming.
BALI, Indonesia, Dec. 11 -- U.S. officials at U.N. climate negotiations here said Tuesday that they would not embrace any overall binding goals for cutting global greenhouse gas emissions before President Bush leaves office, essentially putting off specific U.S. commitments until a new administra...
Washington Post Environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin was online to discuss the latest developments at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Infectious-disease expert David N. Gilbert was making rounds at the Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon in April when he realized that an unusual number of patients, including young, vigorous adults, were being hit by a frightening pneumonia.
Washington Post staff writer Marc Kaufman was online to discuss whether the human body is capable of living in space for long periods of time without suffering serious damage.
