For the first time it will mean that scientists are altering human genetic inheritance.

BBC: Ethics of using three people's DNA to create one baby

Iceland, in effect, is a huge extended family that can be used to investigate genetic inheritance.

FORBES: Icelandic identifiers

Darwin's theories of natural selection and genetic inheritance had spawned fears about racial decline.

ECONOMIST: Britain between the wars

Stefansson sought the predisposing genes among Icelandic patients because their richly documented family trees and homogeneous genetic inheritance made the task as easy as looking for a needle in a box of needles.

FORBES: Profitable pedigree

The genetic inheritance of Homo sapiens sapiens, which evolved during the 7m years or so that separate us from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos, equipped man to succeed as a hunter-gatherer.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

The hybrids were bred again with deer mice, and the type of burrows those "backcross" offspring made show the inheritance patterns of the behaviours - and strong hints of how many genetic changes are required to modify it.

BBC: Mouse burrowing 'in their genes'