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.
60 years monitoring 60 million stars and no trace of alien life
[R]adio signals continue to be the most popular SETI target, as focused radio emissions could signal the presence of an ...
Challenging ‘infodemics’: How AI helped create — and maybe could help contain — the growing boom in disinformation
There’s nothing new about conspiracy theories, disinformation, and untruths in politics. What is new is how quickly malicious actors can ...
Why do some people cheat? The science of infidelity
There are many reasons why people cheat, and the patterns are more complex than common stereotypes suggest. A fascinating new ...
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Evolutionary tradeoffs: Here’s why birthing a child is so difficult
To pass through the birth canal, human infants have to perform a series of twists and turns, a process called ...
’AI is neither artificial nor intelligent’: Kate Crawford’s new book ‘Atlas of AI’ views technology through a social justice prism
[In her book “Atlas of AI,” Kate Crawford brings] us on a global journey, from the mines where the rare ...
Sleepy during the day? Struggle with sleep apnea? Both are genetically linked to telomeres, parts of your chromosomes that reflect biological age
A predilection for afternoon naps does not necessarily mean you need to worry about your own mortality, but the scientific ...
Lab-grown creations called chimeras are celebrated as science breakthroughs — but they are also a cause for concern
[R]esearchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and China’s Kunming University of Science and Technology ...
Did Homo sapiens really outcompete Neanderthals? Genetics is rewriting the story of human evolution
Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago, and between 177,000 and 194,000 years ago they colonized what is ...
DNA test for couples? Start-up Orchid claims its over-the-counter kit can identify complex inherited disorders. Is it ready for prime time?
A new startup called Orchid is offering the chance for couples planning a pregnancy to learn their odds of passing ...
‘Wild West of CRISPR’? Ukraine clinic promises to gene edit graying hair, skin quality and breast size
If I had to pick one country that might be the epitome of the ‘Wild West’ of reproductive and genetic ...
Microplastics are overwhelming the environment. Here’s how we could mobilize bacteria to clean up our pollution mess
Microplastics are not easily biodegradable, so they stick around for long periods of time and they also absorb and accumulate ...
Brains make the difference: Here’s the root of human self-reflection and self awareness
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Know Thyself: The Science of Self-Awareness by Stephen M. Fleming. What is it ...
Mars has all the ingredients necessary to support life — in its subsurface
[A] new paper in Astrobiology shows that there might very well be a place where life can sustain itself on ...
Video: Discovery of Homo naledi suggests ‘maybe brain size isn’t all it’s cracked up to be’ when it comes to human evolution
The small brains of Homo naledi raise new questions about the evolution of human brain size. Big brains were costly ...
Endometriosis falls into the abyss of ‘women’s diseases’: Here’s what a pioneering bioengineer is designing to redress that
Dr. [Linda] Griffith founded the [Gynepathology Research] lab in 2009 with the goal of helping researchers solve endometriosis, a chronic ...
After years of public and regulatory resistance in the US, first batch of mosquitoes genetically engineered to end Zika, dengue and other transmittable diseases are released
After a decade of fighting for regulatory approval and public acceptance, a biotechnology firm has released genetically engineered mosquitoes into ...
Can ‘remarkable’ mRNA technology used to develop Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccines combat other diseases?
Harry Al-Wassiti, a bioengineer from Monash University, has been working with mRNA technology for several years, and he describes the ...
Humans lived in caves in Africa and used fire and tools as far as two million years ago
A large cave nestled in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert might be the first on Earth to have housed human activity, ...
Anti-aging pill for women? Neutraceutical in development shows significant promise in improving muscle health
A small clinical trial of postmenopausal women with prediabetes shows that the compound NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) improved the ability of ...
Viewpoint: What’s causing an explosion in incidents of Parkinson’s disease? Do household products play a role?
[Ray] Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of Ending Parkinson’s Disease, believes a Parkinson’s ...
10 cases in the world: Here’s the remarkable story of woman who got pregnant while already carrying a baby
Noah's first close-ups, taken by ultrasound at seven and 10 weeks into the pregnancy, showed 39-year-old mom Rebecca Roberts and ...
3-D technology is reinventing paleoanthropology and the reconstruction of fossils
In 2018 a student excavator, Samantha Good, came upon the adult male skull of a Paranthropus robustus, lying upside down, ...
Viewpoint: A case for moderate exercise — We get the most cognitive benefits by ‘performing activities that we evolved to perform’
Your body clearly benefits from a daily moderate level of exercising. Does your brain care? Yes, your brain does pay ...
Video: Viewpoint — The upside is immense but ‘threats from CRISPR gene editing are too big to ignore’
CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a revolutionary technology that gives scientists the ability to alter DNA. On ...
Subtle shift in the causes and treatment of cancer in the US underway
At first glance, it appears that little will change between now and 2040 when it comes to the types of ...
Lack of sleep nearly doubles risk of sexual dysfunction, concludes Mayo Clinic study
Consistently getting a bad night's sleep may lead to an unsatisfactory sex life for many older women, a new study ...
