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.
Can this DNA test find the right depression medication for you?
Using DNA testing to determine how well a given depression medication will work with a patient's genetic makeup is becoming ...
Is there a link between climate change and human evolution?
[W]hile all the talk nowadays focuses on how to change the course of the climate’s evolution, a study out [October 11] ...
Quest to find molecule that sparks multiple sclerosis yields promising discovery
Researchers have long suspected that a self-antigen—a normal molecule in the body that the immune system mistakenly treats as a ...
Merging soldiers and machines: Inside the quest to weaponize the brain
What lies beyond bionics? [DARPA director Justin] Sanchez described his work as trying to “understand the neural code,” which would ...
How dirt could be the key to penicillin’s fight against antibiotic resistance
The next time you stroll outside after the rain, thank the soil bacteria below for the sweet, earthy smell that ...
More than a brain relay station: Thalamus could be key to higher level thinking
Scientists have known for decades that the thalamus faithfully transmits information about the visual world from the retina to the ...
Cracking the code for facial recognition
Brain-imaging studies have revealed that several blueberry-size regions in the temporal lobe—the area under the temple—specialize in responding to faces ...
Do super high IQ children end up successful?
The original motive behind [IQ] tests was to get a diagnostic to select children at the lower ends of the ...
‘Hugely influential’ papers on cardiac stem cells declared ‘fraudulent’ by Harvard
An internal investigation by Harvard Medical School has determined that 31 scientific publications from the laboratory of a high-profile cardiologist ...
Understanding what happens when routine touching becomes agony
It shouldn’t hurt to put on socks, wash hands, or walk about, but for some people with damaged nerves, certain ...
Tragic tradeoff: How depression evaded evolution
Depression is an evolutionary conundrum. On the one hand, it’s the leading cause of disability worldwide; on the other, the ...
Why people with autism have shorter life expectancies
Two recent studies will undoubtedly shock individuals and families affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These studies show a much earlier age ...
How brain scans of sleeping mice could help identify various types of autism in humans
Autism features vary considerably from one person to the next. One of the biggest challenges in autism research is to ...
Therapy dogs spread joy—and possibly superbugs—to kids in hospitals
Therapy dogs can bring more than joy and comfort to hospitalized kids. They can also bring stubborn germs. Doctors at ...
Seeking a simple blood test to detect deadly preeclampsia disorder earlier in pregnancy
When Leigh Ann Torres was in her 29th week of pregnancy, she experienced a sudden, 14-pound weight gain along with terrible swelling ...
450,000-year-old teeth help piece together human family tree
Crime-drama fans know that forensic scientists can ID the remains of long-missing persons by examining their teeth. To solve even ...
Fear-free life? Removing a part of your brain could make it possible—in theory
Brain surgery is not usually something that people actively seek out. However, there may be an exception: the idea of ...
Antidepressant withdrawal effects ‘severe’ for more than half of patients, study says
“More than half (56 percent) of people who attempt to come off antidepressants experience withdrawal effects,” assert the authors of ...
Most adults want DNA testing – but don’t want to be ‘blindsided’ by results
Only a small percentage of people in their 50s and early 60s have had their DNA tested—for medical reasons, to ...
First Mars, then Jupiter’s moons: How artificial intelligence is ramping up space exploration
Artificial intelligence in space exploration is gathering momentum. Over the coming years, new missions look likely to be turbo-charged by AI as ...
Viewpoint: Do male doctors tend to be paternalistic when treating ‘female’ diseases?
When my silent assassin emerged last autumn, I pressed my surgeon about the prognosis for a form of peritoneal cancer ...
This AI-generated cheeseburger will make your mouth water
The techniques that empower computers to make autonomous decisions have become vogue for modern tech companies in the last six years ...
Does the internet ‘mess with your brain’? New international project aims to find out
As anyone who has spent any amount of time on Twitter can tell you, the internet can bring out the ...
Redefining reproduction? Immature human eggs made from blood cells
We all know how babies are made: sperm meets egg, molecular magic happens, and an entire human comes to life ...
Autism, intellectual delay could be result of spontaneous mutations
Genetic variants across the genome contribute to about 8 percent of the risk for certain developmental conditions — much more ...
In order to thrive, precision medicine requires ‘novel business solutions’
Oncology currently leads the way in precision medicine advancements, but its forward progress is slowed by inefficiencies such as clinical ...
No more words? BrainNet enables ‘brain-to-brain’ communication, Tetris-like game play
What if we could do away with words altogether? What if, rather than relying on an intermediary, we could directly ...
DNA forensic analysis soon will be ‘vastly more powerful’—good for crime fighting, problematic for privacy
Genetic sleuthing techniques that led to the arrest of a suspect in the infamous Golden State Killer case this year ...
