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.
Light-activated genes in bacteria engineered with CRISPR-Cas9
Scientists may have taken a step closer to making science fiction a medical reality. Researchers at Duke University have developed ...
Should animals have legal rights currently reserved for humans?
Tommy the chimpanzee got his day in court on October 8, 2014. He was unable to attend the hearing in ...
Drug-resistant malaria may pose enormous threat, doctor warns
Despite a sharp drop in malaria-related deaths over the past decade, a veteran doctor here, in the heart of the ...
Discussion with Mary-Claire King: Breast cancer gene discoverer
There has never been a scientific career quite like Mary-Claire King’s. Years ago, her doctoral thesis concluded that humans and ...
Was Beethoven’s music inspired by genetic mutations for arrhythmia?
Arrhythmia is a largely a genetic condition that can greatly hinder--or in the rare case of Beethoven, inspire--life. New research ...
Hormone therapeutics boosted by unique cow antibodies
The friendly cow, said to be blown by all the winds that pass, and wet with all the showers, may ...
Are fears of genetic testing rational?
DNA testing has become very popular among genealogists. The birth certificates, census records, and other documents they usually rely on ...
Origin of mammalian pregnancy revealed by genomic ‘parasites’
An international team of scientists has identified large-scale genetic changes that marked the evolution of pregnancy in mammals. They found ...
How do viruses become contagious?
Here are two recent stories about viruses. They started out alike, and ended up very differently. In October, a woman ...
Challenge to Apple, Facebook: Unfair to prioritize egg-freezing over childcare
The pressure is immense. In stepped a few corporate giants with a plan meant to help young (and youngish) women ...
Is science leading modern society down the right path?
When John G. West’s Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of ...
Precision medicine is a big step in the right direction
Re “ ‘Moonshot’ Medicine Will Let Us Down” (Op-Ed, Jan. 29): Michael J. Joyner asserts that precision medicine, an exciting ...
Does harder living translate to shorter lifespans?
A common belief among human life history researchers is that "harsher" environments - i.e., those with higher mortality rates and ...
What’s lurking in New York City’s subway?
The Wall Street Journal released an interactive map of the bacteria in New York’s subway system. And as expected, it's ...
How oncologists sort through masses of genetic data
Whether they are concerned with a mutation of a single gene, or mutations in a combination of two or more ...
More potential health benefits found from drinking red wine
Researchers at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine report that a compound found in common foods such as ...
How the UK House of Commons was swayed to approve 3-parent IVF
If you have been following the debate about whether to allow the new IVF technique of mitochondrial donation, which was ...
Genetics policy can help, or hurt, racial and social justice
The sequencing of the human genome and the science that made that feat possible have led to some fascinating new ...
In retrospect, Obama’s personalized medicine initiative is nothing new
In the State of the Union speech delivered on January 20, President Obama made the first announcement of what seems ...
Bedbugs’ evolution is bad news for everyone, except scientists
In the closing sentence of “The Origin of Species,” Charles Darwin marvels at the process of evolution, observing how “from ...
Woman’s rapid weight gain raises questions over fecal transplant
The case of a normal-weight woman who rapidly became obese after receiving a fecal transplant from an overweight relative has ...
Gut microbes may be engineered to fight vitamin deficiency
It's easy to forget how horrifying the effects of a vitamin deficiency can be. Each year, up to 500,000 children ...
How viruses insert themselves into our DNA
Each year, billions of people get infected with viruses–with common ones like influenza and cold viruses, and rarer ones like ...
Neurological impact of premature birth starting to become known
Thanks to medical advances since the 1970s, premature infants — those born before 37 weeks of gestation — are increasingly ...
Drugs from where?! Female genitals may be source of uniquely effective antibiotic
Despite the yuck factor, bacteria that colonize our bodies are proving to be an effective source of medical treatments including ...
Obesity becoming less severe in young children
The rise in childhood obesity, which has left one in three children overweight, may be beginning to level off in ...
Coming to terms with lingering sense of ownership over donated embryos
When my husband and I were in the middle of our IVF cycle and obsessing over shots, ultrasounds, invasive procedures ...
