Daily Human Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of human genetics issues, including gene editing, regulations and bioethics, gene therapy, epigenetics, personal genomics, evolution, ancestry and artificial intelligence. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
Concerned about depression? Wake up an hour earlier
People who tend to go to bed and wake up earlier have significantly lower risk of major depression, according to ...
‘If humans are so smart, why do women menstruate? Who thought that was a good idea?’ Interview with ‘Evolution Gone Wrong’ author Alexander Bezzerides
Okay, humans, if we're so smart, why do our backs hurt so much? Why do we cry? And menstruation, who ...
Puppy love: Dogs are born to understand people. Here’s how culture and evolution worked together
The fate of dog and man has been entwined for millennia (exactly how long is still a question, with estimates ...
Viewpoint: Culture is more powerful than genes to human evolution, researchers claim
In a new study, University of Maine researchers found that culture helps humans adapt to their environment and overcome challenges ...
Tough time recovering from jet lag? US government-university partnership developing implantable ‘living pharmacy’ to control our circadian clocks
A Northwestern University-led team of researchers has signed a cooperative agreement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a ...
The mRNA biotechnology revolution unleashed by COVID vaccine breakthroughs is just beginning — and it will impact disease research for decades to come
The messenger RNA, or mRNA, platform may be new to the global public, but it's a technology that researchers had ...
Our DNA can store a staggering amount of information in an almost inconceivably small volume
The prevailing long-term cold-storage method, which dates from the 1950s, writes data to pizza-sized reels of magnetic tape. By comparison, ...
Beyond dopamine: The science behind how and why the brain works to make us happy
[Dopamine is] one of the many, many chemicals (aka neurotransmitters) found in the human brain, where it has many functions ...
Viewpoint: Evolution is more than a Darwinian ‘selfish gene’ battle to the death
The idea that selfishness and greed are drivers of evolution, and therefore possess underlying virtue, has been around for over ...
‘Natural selection in real time’: Which species are most likely to adapt to climate change?
Climate change is exacerbating problems like habitat loss and temperatures swings that have already pushed many animal species to the ...
Population bomb, in reverse: Too few babies — not too many — is emerging as a major global problem
In Japan, people buy more diapers for the elderly than babies... And the population growth rate in the U.S. is ...
Viewpoint: Debating the debate over the new stem cell research guidelines
An organization of scientists is recommending that limitations on several experimental and controversial research procedures – including heritable genome editing, ...
The smartest person in the cockpit: How Artificial Intelligence is guiding the emerging travel boom
A storm cell near Oklahoma City was likely to turn into a thunderstorm around the time Flight 1405 took off, ...
False link: No, milk does not increase cholesterol levels
A study published in the International Journal of Obesity looked at three large population studies and found that people who ...
Going back to your office for work may increase your productivity — and your weight. Here’s why
With millions of Americans vaccinated against COVID-19, many who have worked from home over the past year will be heading ...
CRISPR gene editing on the cusp of adding new gene drive tools to control disease-carrying mosquitoes
[D]espite decades of effort, vaccines have, for many [diseases like malaria and dengue], proved tricky to develop. Better, then, to ...
How genetic genealogy helped solve this 50-year old case of a teenage girl’s murder
Barry Lee Whelpley, 76, was arrested [June 2] at his home in Minnesota for the 1972 murder of Julie Ann ...
Brainless hydras can tell us a lot about the significance of sleep
It does not have a brain, or even much of a nervous system. And yet, new research shows, it sleeps ...
Viewpoint: Precision education? Genetic tests purporting to ascertain students’ educational capabilities under fire
Genetic tests claiming to predict people’s intellectual aptitudes or how much education they are likely to get are readily available ...
Too smart for our own good: How artificial superintelligence could lead to humanity’s demise
Imagine systems, whether biological or artificial, with levels of intelligence equal to or far greater than human intelligence. Radically enhanced ...
Coronavirus quarantines have caused a huge spike in ‘cybersickness’
The pandemic has forced most of us online at incomparable rates. It’s where we’ve worked, taken classes, attended parties, and ...
After a fertility clinic freezer filled with 3,500 frozen eggs and embryos malfunctioned, many families lost their only chance at having kids. A jury just awarded them $15 million in damages
[In March 2018, a] tank storing frozen human embryos and eggs at Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco had failed, ...
7 people contract malaria every second. We are finally on the verge of engineering a vaccine to stymie one of the world’s most relentless killers
In a study published in The Lancet on [May 5th] an international team has shared promising new data on a ...
Humanized pigs: How scientists bioengineered swine with human immune systems to accelerate research on viruses, vaccines, cancer and stem cell therapeutics
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires all new medicines to be tested in animals before use in people. Pigs make ...
‘Mixed-handers’ make up less than 1% of the world’s population — except in the NBA where 1 in 12 stars play and write with different hands. What’s going on?
LeBron James writes with his left hand, eats with his left hand and uses his dominant left hand for almost ...
COVID side-effect: Many of us are more interested in brand names of companies that make our medications. Here’s why that could be a good development
In a new survey, my company, M Booth Health, found that a seismic shift has already begun. People are changing ...
The pandemic has roiled international surrogacy. What’s an ethical path going forward?
[T]he pandemic has created new challenges to engaging in international surrogacy ethically due to changes in how healthcare is administered, ...
