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.
We are in the midst of a consumer DNA ‘testing frenzy’
By the start of 2019, more than 26 million consumers had added their DNA to four leading commercial ancestry and ...
Personality research: A bright spot in the midst of psychology’s ‘replication crisis’
While psychology has been mired in a “replication crisis” recently – based on the failure of contemporary researchers to recreate ...
Ancient DNA study reveals South America’s first peoples
A cross-border, multi-disciplinary study has revealed new insights into the story of the earliest migrants into South America. Using powerful ...
‘Trojan horse’ ‘TV’ drug shows potential to fight 6 different cancers
A brand new type of cancer drug that acts as a 'Trojan horse' to get inside tumor cells has shown ...
Gene drives reach their next frontier: Mammals
Tiny snippets of engineered DNA, gene drives are nuclear-grade powerhouses that utterly destroy the rules of inheritance. Rather than the classic ...
Pew survey exposes Americans’ complicated views on evolution and religion
Most biologists and other scientists contend that evolutionary theory convincingly explains the origins and development of life on Earth. So ...
Fighting depression: Nasal-based ketamine spray clears key FDA hurdle
One of the largest hurdles to ketamine becoming a mainstream depression treatment may have just been cleared. On [February 12], ...
How AI ‘learned’ to predict a person’s age by analyzing gut bacteria
The plethora of bacteria and other tiny organisms that live in your gut, often referred to as the gut microbiome, don’t ...
Destructive diets: Are we eating Earth’s large animals to extinction?
In new research published [February 6] in the journal Conservation Letters, scientists surveyed the populations of nearly 300 species of megafauna ...
6 things we don’t understand about psychopaths
Journalists and fiction writers and even psychologists and criminologists have gone to great lengths to both mystify and make monsters out of ...
Early diagnosis of children with anxiety, depression key to better treatment
Researchers wanted to see if the movements during a scary situation differed between children diagnosed with depression or anxiety and ...
‘Google of sorts’: DNA database harnesses power of genome sequences
In 2015, scientists discovered a pig in China that would set off a frantic, worldwide search. The pig carried bacteria ...
‘Unsettling’ news: Alzheimer’s could be transmissible
[A] new paper appeared in Nature that seemed to take the evidence for the transmissibility of Alzheimer’s peptides from “circumstantial” to ...
Viewpoint: It’s time for a debate on precision medicine and its failed promises
Although some niche applications have been found for precision medicine, and gene therapy is now becoming a reality for a ...
‘Arrival of the fittest’: Fragile DNA ‘hot spots’ play key role in mutations, evolution
Against the odds, separate species and populations independently evolve the same solutions to life’s challenges, and the same genes are ...
Is depression affected by bacteria in the gut?
The human microbiome—a collection of bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses commingling in the gut and intestines—has been linked to a ...
Drug use linked to impulsiveness in genetic study
Some of the same genes that influence a person’s propensity toward impulsiveness also affect whether or not he or she ...
Making the case for expanded prenatal genetic testing to identify disorders
Approximately three per cent of pregnancies will have an abnormality in the structure of the developing baby, which is detected ...
Are DIY designer babies a real possibility?
[Bryan] Bishop, a 29-year-old programmer and Bitcoin investor, has been leaving a trail of comments about human “enhancement” on the ...
Shortcomings of new cystic fibrosis treatments illustrate the complexity of some genetic diseases
Josh Hillman, a 23-year-old Harvard Law student from Alabama, has cystic fibrosis, the progressive genetic disease that causes frequent lung ...
‘Not just eye candy’: New mapping technique could help unlock brain’s mysteries
[In mid January], 18 institutions teamed up and devised a method to image entire brains 1,000 times faster than anything ...
Searching for a link between skin problems and mental health
While some studies have shown a link between isotretinoin use and suicidal thoughts and depression, it’s not clear whether those mental health effects are ...
University of California Berkeley scores win in CRISPR patent rivalry
The University of California will soon be granted a potentially valuable patent on the revolutionary gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, ...
Viewpoint: We need to get better at diagnosing Alzheimer’s if we hope to improve treatments
Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., and unlike with cancer and heart disease, we ...
Defending 23andMe’s DNA health test: ‘You will learn something’ of value
The New York Times decided to publish an editorial ... warning people to "be careful about 23andMe's Health Test." What are they ...
Have grandmothers offered evolutionary advantages to their families?
Since the name of the evolutionary game is survival and reproduction, the phenomenon begs explanation — why live longer than ...
Viewpoint: Gene drive technology could eliminate malaria. But we must get it right, first
People don’t give people malaria: The 460 species of mosquitoes in the genus Anopheles do, and researchers are taking aim at them ...
Sending tiny organs into space in search for aging, disease secrets
In research that sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, astronauts are conducting experiments on miniature human organs—such ...
