A study in China focused on “motherless” genes has revealed clues about uniquely human traits, such as intelligence, as well as our susceptibility to certain diseases. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
BEIJING (SCMP): A genetic study in China that could have major implications for human evolution – and cancer research – has shown that a special type of recently evolved gene can be sequestered by cancerous tumours to fuel their growth.
The team of researchers from Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) examined a group of young genes that emerged de novo, meaning they recently evolved from regions of the genome that do not code for proteins, rather than from coding genes through typical gene evolution.
