Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Sex chromosomes have raised many intriguing evolutionary questions, such as how these dynamic chromosomes arise and why their content differs from autosomes. Recently, empirical evidence has built on theoretical work and comparisons of XY and ZW systems are set to provide further insight.
Clefts of the lip and/or palate are common and have a complex genetic and environmental basis. Recent work on these birth defects illustrates the value of combining genome-wide association studies, animal models and improved clinical phenotyping. Future work may also address gene–environment interactions.
Advances in genetics, genomics and molecular biology are improving existing forensic approaches and providing new ones. The authors discuss improvements in DNA profiling, the growing field of forensic DNA phenotyping, and new molecular approaches that help to link sample donors to crimes.
Molecular biology and sociobiology have operated largely as independent disciplines. But, as discussed in this Review, sociobiology theory can contribute greatly to our understanding of molecular systems by showing that networks are shaped by cooperative and competitive phenotypes across multiple levels of biological organization.
The reigning paradigm in population genetic theory has been that pleiotropy is pervasive, with every gene affecting every trait. Empirical data is now challenging this model, pointing towards a much more structured and restricted pleiotropy in which mutations affect only subsets of characters.
This Opinion article argues that capturing phase information in human genomics studies is crucial for important aims such as understanding how genotype contributes to phenotypes. existing approaches for phasing will need to be improved in order to meet this goal.
