4 health conditions you didn’t know were influenced by genetics

Although your lifestyle and environment each have a powerful impact on your health, your DNA—the genetic code that’s stored within each of your trillions of cells—has a significant effect as well. Thanks to advances in...

Helix Engineering: The art of configuration, part 2

This is part of a blog series written by the Helix Engineering staff. To follow along with the team as they publish, keep tabs on the Helix Engineering blog category. In our last installment, we...

What can an ice mummy teach us about heart disease?

Looking at the list of common risk factors, you can easily see how a modern lifestyle can increase a person’s risk of having heart disease. On average, people eat more, smoke more, and walk less...

Genetics and evolution in a test tube

In 1901, the field of genetics was still young. For decades, people had been interested in the concept of heredity, but the early 1900s ushered in a new era of genetics—one fueled by the desire...

What do ancestry tests really tell us?

It had only been a few months since my grandma passed away, but my grandpa felt it was important for me to take her prayer coins as my own—I had given them to her when...

How does DNA affect our blood pressure?

What determines our blood pressure? It probably comes as no surprise that it has a lot to do with the heart—the power and frequency of its beat helps determine how forceful the blood flow will...

What is malignant hyperthermia, and how can you find out if you may be at risk?

For most people, anesthesia is a safe and important part of surgery or other types of procedures. But for a small group of people, anesthesia could cause a potentially life threatening condition known as malignant...