New research offers insight into the evolutionary history of amylase genes, which are key to our ability to eat and digest starchy food. A study found that human ancestors started carrying multiple ...

Two new studies found that ancient human ancestors carried a surprising diversity of genes for amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch. By Carl Zimmer As soon as you put starch in your mouth — ...

Starch, a complex carbohydrate, is a vital source of nutrition for many mammals. Humans farm it in the form of rice, wheat, corn, potatoes and oats. Rats comb our garbage piles for scraps of pizza and ...

Historically, the similarity between AMY1 copies has made this stretch of the genome difficult to map with traditional short-read sequencing techniques like sequencing by synthesis, which map out ...