Heritability, the proportion of variation in a particular trait that is attributable to genetic factors, is a fundamental parameter in genetics. First introduced by Sewall Wright and Ronald Fisher ...

Most human diseases are dichotomous and are measured on a binary scale (disease absent (0) or present (1)). Some of the observed phenotypic variation of disease can be attributed to genetic variation.

Sequencing nearly half a million genomes, researchers show that most additive genetic influences on height, lipids, and other complex traits are now directly measurable, while pinpointing ultra-rare ...

Heritability is a fraught topic. It comes up repeatedly on this weblog, but even long time readers can be confused as to its implications, as evidenced by the incorrect inferences made from their own ...

Regulatory genes -- genes that control how other genes are used -- are responsible for 69% of the heritability of dairy cattle traits such as milk production and fertility, according to a new study.

In the first study of its kind, scientists have detected evidence that DNA may not be the only carrier of heritable information; a secondary molecular mechanism called epigenetics may also account for ...

According to a news feature from the journal Nature, shortsightedness could be on the rise because children are spending less time outdoors than they used to. In short: myopia has undergone a marked ...

Kate Lynch receives funding from Macquarie University. Geneticists quantify the proportion that genes contribute using a heritability estimate, represented as h². When traits are claimed to be genetic ...

Several studies of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) have assessed whether this condition is inherited and can be passed from one generation to another. For example, according to a study by ...

Methane isn’t just an environmental buzzword — it is energy lost. Every puff of gas from a cow’s rumen represents feed energy ...