By Julia Morris, University of Sheffield
Over the past two decades, the sale of commercial genetic ancestry tests has steadily increased. Celebrities such as Demi Lovato, Oprah Winfrey and Meryl Streep have used them to trace their ancestry and publicly shared their results. This, and no doubt, personal curiosity; has served to catalyse a recent boost in popularity.
Continue reading How much should we trust genetic ancestral tests?
By Sarah Madden, The Royal Institution & University of Cambridge
Picture this. You’re in the lab. You have too many experiments/ too much writing/too much reading to do (delete as appropriate!). You can feel the panic rise through your body. Your palms begin to feel sweaty and you can feel your heart beating in your chest. Odds are if you’re a PhD student you’ve been there.
Continue reading To internship, or not internship? That is the question
By Helen Albert, Editor
Although archaeologists and anthropologists have been studying the ancient remains of our ancestors for many years, the study of ancient DNA extracted from these specimens began more recently. In 1984, Russell Higuchi, Allan Wilson and colleagues (University of California, Berkeley, USA) managed to extract DNA from a museum specimen of the Quagga, an extinct relative of the Zebra.
Continue reading Using modern techniques to decipher ancient remains
By Elizabeth Dellar, CaSE & University of Oxford
Over the last three months I’ve been working as an intern at the CaSE. During this time, I’ve focused principally on updating our work on diversity and inclusion in STEMM, involving creating an evidence base resource for our website and writing a short briefing document, which will be published in the new year. While I have been focusing my work on actions that Government can take to improve diversity and inclusion, spending so much time reading, talking and writing about it has caused me to start viewing what I do with a diversity lens.
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