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.
COVID-19 exposes Ukraine’s booming baby-for-sale business
They are the children of foreign couples born to Ukrainian surrogate mothers at the Kyiv-based BioTexCom Centre for Human Reproduction, ...
Infographic: No more shots? Next-gen vaccine ‘sheets’ melt on the tongue
Two issues influencing the accessibility of many vaccines are their needs for constant refrigeration from production until use and for ...
Extraterrestrial neighbors? Our galaxy contains over 30 intelligent civilizations, new calculations suggest
In 1961 the astronomer Frank Drake proposed what became known as the Drake equation, setting out seven factors that would ...
Mosquito spit might be a universal vaccine ‘Holy Grail’ – preventing everything from malaria to Zika
Her idea revolved around mosquito spit. Building on the work of colleagues and other scientists, [Jessica] Manning, a clinical researcher ...
Century-old lung helps scientists trace measles back to now-eradicated cattle virus
For years, the lung sat in the basement of the Berlin Museum of Medical History along with hundreds of other ...
Recreating evolution: Human gene triggers bigger brains in monkeys
Researchers in Germany and Japan introduced a human-specific gene to the fetuses of common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus. In turn, that ...
Infographic: Deadly opioid overdoses are way more common than we think
Researchers looked at data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on about 630,000 people who died of drug ...
DNA analysis of 5,000-year-old Irish remains reveals an incestuous elite social class
[Researchers found] an adult male buried at the 5,000-year-old Newgrange monument; his DNA revealed that his parents were first-degree relatives, ...
Gene editing cures hereditary deafness in mice. Are humans next?
Two to three out of every 1,000 children born in the United States have a diminished level of hearing or ...
Estrogen slows down adult bone growth, leading to generally taller men and shorter women
Human sexual size dimorphism, the difference in height between males and females, is often touted as a classic example of ...
Population health vs personalized medicine? Coronavirus pandemic highlights the importance of multiple approaches
“If we are to advance health care in the United States, where is the dollar best spent? Is it spent ...
30 years later in Romania: What happened to the babies deprived of human contact?
In 1990, the outside world discovered [Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s] network of “child gulags,” in which an estimated 170,000 abandoned ...
Certain autism behaviors and seizures might have a common origins
Early behavioral signs predict seizures in autistic children, according to a new study. Previous work has shown that 5 to ...
Injecting live bacteria into tumors? Synthetic biology revives a controversial century old cancer cure
Could the body, in fighting against a pathogen, also be battling a tumor? After injecting bacteria into a patient who ...
Why space travel demands a well-stocked cosmic pharmacy
In space, no one can hear you sneeze. But if an astronaut does catch the flu, it can be a ...
Bioprinting human ears inside living mice—all without a single surgical cut
Tissue engineering just got wilder and weirder. Using nothing but light and bioink, scientists were able to directly print a ...
Viewpoint: Genetics research was supposed to change human health. Is it time to reconsider investments in the field?
Since its birth 30 years ago, proponents of the Human Genome Project have promised that genetics research would yield untold ...
‘Vaccine hesitancy scale’: Parents are especially suspicious of flu shots, study finds
About 1 in 15 US parents (6.1%) is hesitant about routine childhood vaccines, and more than 1 in 4 (26%) ...
Autism linked to eating disorders—but which comes first?
At least 20 percent of adults and 3 percent of children with eating disorders also have autism. But much of ...
Platinum mesh device moves us closer to wearable or implantable artificial kidney
Kidneys clean our blood using nephrons, which are essentially filters that let fluid and waste products through while blocking blood ...
Scanning the horizon for the next decade’s biotech breakthroughs, including tools to fight the next pandemic
In 2017 we published the results of a ‘horizon scan’ that looked at emerging issues in bioengineering (Wintle et al., ...
Infographic: Decreasing metabolism inefficiency could tackle obesity at the source
Obesity affects millions worldwide and drives health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and many cancers. Now researchers from the ...
CRISPR provides ‘functional cure’ for patients with beta thalassemia, sickle cell disease, preliminary study shows
Result of this ongoing trial, which is the first to use CRISPR to treat inherited genetic disorders, were announced [June ...
Why do some people never get sick? How genes, habits and your surroundings can make or break immune health
“People get exposed to the same virus, the same dose, even the same source. One gets very sick, and the ...
Exercise may benefit your brain more than any other part of your body
The Norwegian Directorate of Health recommends that people exercise at moderate intensity a total of 2.5 hours each week – ...
How the COVID-19 pandemic has emboldened ‘armchair’ virologists
[W]hen the Olympics are being broadcast, I transform into an armchair commentator, catching a full-blown case of what I like ...
Engineering transparent human cells brings us one step closer to a true ‘Invisible Man’
The project involves genetically engineering human cells to have the ability to vary their transparency. This is based on a ...
Social and health complications in children linked to aging parents. Should age restrictions on fertility treatments be raised?
For nearly 40 years, fertility treatment has grown ever more advanced and so entrenched that it’s not uncommon for couples ...
