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.
CRISPR therapy demonstrates ‘real curative potential’ for sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia
The first two patients to receive a CRISPR-based treatment for the inherited blood disorders sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia ...
Psychiatric diagnoses scientifically meaningless? Why that criticism ‘seems meaningless’
In this opinion piece, psychiatrist Samei Huda responds to a recent journal article published in Psychiatry Research that labeled psychiatric ...
Seeking a better understanding of how space travel changes human heart cells
A team of researchers led by Joseph Wu, the director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, recently sent cardiomyocytes made from human ...
Trio of gene therapies seeks to reverse age-related diseases to make us ‘healthy, youthful later in life’
The legendary synthetic biologist Dr. George Church and team at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University took a first step towards ...
Can we take AI to the next level by building robots that fear for their own safety?
There might be a way, though, to give robots feelings, say neuroscientists Kingson Man and Antonio Damasio. Simply build the ...
Can meditation, hypnosis treat epilepsy and other brain disorders?
Understanding more about how consciousness works could help us find treatments when things go wrong. Dr Prisca Bauer from the ...
Gene-editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna calls for greater accountability on anniversary of China scientist CRISPR gene editing human embryo
There are key moments in the history of every disruptive technology that can make or break its public perception and ...
China’s new Alzheimer drug greeted with ‘surprise and skepticism’ by researchers
China’s approval of the drug oligomannate earlier this month for treating mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease has been met with surprise and ...
AI ethics can’t come from human medicine: Principles that guide doctors would ‘make no sense’ to a machine
The four core principles of medical ethics are respect for autonomy (patients should have control over how they are treated), ...
Sleep disturbances may make you susceptible to anxiety disorders
Studies in healthy human volunteers have shown how a sleepless night can increase anxiety levels by 30%. In some participants ...
We may need to genetically engineer astronauts to protect them from radiation during long space flights
One of the main health concerns with space travel is radiation exposure. If, for example, scientists could figure out a way ...
Campaign in France to loosen ban on direct-to-consumer DNA testing gains traction
The French ban on direct-to-consumer genetic testing is part of the country’s bioethics laws, which legislators are supposed to revise every ...
How old is your dog in human years? This calculator promises more accurate estimate, using epigenetics
Our Scotch collie, Buckaroo, is just shy of 14 years old. Following the long-debunked but still popular idea that one ...
Children with autism are twice as likely to suffer from chronic pain
Children with autism are about twice as likely as their typical peers to experience chronic or repeated pain, according to ...
Viewpoint: Doctors will never be replaced by intelligent machines, which lack ’empathy, common sense’
Is there a place for artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of medicine? Will doctors one day be replaced by ...
‘Self-eating’ mitochondria may make the brain vulnerable to Lou Gehrig’s disease
A newly discovered type of mitochondrial self-destruction may make some brain cells vulnerable to ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s ...
Why lumping transgender teens into a single group in mental health studies is missing an opportunity to help them
The disparities are staggering: A growing body of research suggests that transgender teens experience suicidal thoughts and attempt to take ...
Aging as a preventable disease: Why living to 100 should be easy
Science is investigating some intriguing clues suggesting that aging and death may not be as inevitable as we thought. David ...
Are highly educated people more likely to get cancer? Or just more likely to get tested?
A person’s socioeconomic status plays a role in the type of cancer they might get, the Cancer Registry researchers found ...
Xeno-Skin: Genetically engineered pigs may be source of transplantable skin for humans
In a pathogen-free facility in Grafton, Massachusetts, a small town about 40 miles west of Boston, genetically engineered miniature pigs ...
Can deep brain stimulation treat opioid addiction?
A surgeon has implanted electrodes in the brain of a patient suffering from severe opioid use disorder, hoping to cure ...
Ancient Rome was genetic crossroads for many European lineages, DNA analysis suggests
Ancient Rome was the capital city of an empire that encompassed some 70 million inhabitants. An international research team now ...
Artificial Intelligence lab OpenAI wants to develop technology ‘to save the world’. Will it also assist the US military?
Microsoft’s recent victory in landing a $10 billion Pentagon cloud-computing contract called JEDI could make life more complicated for one of the ...
Children from extramarital affairs not as common as we think, study shows
That old joke about the milkman fathering many of a town’s children—it’s far from true, a new study reaffirms. Researchers ...
How synthetic biology will allow us to redesign humans ‘from the ground up’
Just as physics and chemistry have given humans power over the world of the inanimate, biology is giving us the ...
‘Game changer’ for genetic privacy: Court forces GEDmatch to open its million-person genealogy database to police scrutiny
A Florida state judge has reportedly allowed police to search the entirety of the public genealogy website GEDmatch — home ...
Why it may not be ‘screen time’ that’s stunting development of kids’ brains
A new study links young children’s screen time with changes in the brain and slower language development. But parents, before ...
Two new drug-resistant superbugs added to CDC’s list of ‘most urgent threats’
Drug-resistant germs and related infections sicken about 3 million people and kill about 48,000 every year in the United States, ...
