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.
How very similar genes give rise to diversity of life
There’s a unity to life. Sometimes it’s plain to see, but very often it lurks underneath a distraction of differences ...
Gene editing, CRISPR, might provide solution to viral antibiotic resistance
A gene editing system bacteria use to shield themselves from viruses has been used by MIT scientists as a sword to vanquish ...
New sign language challenges genetic basis for similarities between languages
Languages, like human bodies, come in a variety of shapes—but only to a point. Just as people don’t sprout multiple ...
Stem cells: Stalled promises
Fifteen years ago, stem cell therapies captivated the public’s perception of emerging medical treatments and offered the promise of replacing ...
Start genetic literacy young: Take your family to “Unlocking Life’s Code” touring exhibit
“Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code” is an initiative of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and the National Human Genome ...
Epigenetic cellular controls key for sperm and cancers
Sometimes in science there are unexpected threads tying seemingly very different things together. Unraveling the knots in these threads can ...
Sleeping brain still rehearses important tasks
Efforts to combine last minute cramming with a good night's sleep by sticking a book under the pillow and hoping the ...
Our Darwinian ideas of male infidelity and female loyalty have long been misguided
Ever since Darwin there had been an assumption among evolutionary biologists that females were coy and choosy in their sexual ...
Video: How do new genes get made?
When life emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago, the earliest microbes had a set of basic genes that ...
Epigenetics focus of next round of National Institute of Aging grants
The National Institute on Aging plans to award up to $800,000 next year to investigators' efforts to develop and plan ...
Older BRCA test results may need retesting
As a naturopathic physician, I am interested in primary prevention, preventing illness, not just catching it early. Because of that, ...
Mobile chunks of DNA important for recent human evolution
Mobile pieces of DNA can jump around in the human genome and exert powerful regulatory effects on neighboring genes at ...
USB-drive gene sequencer finally hits the market
When it comes to DNA, France has always been behind the times. Never mind the hefty fines and prison sentence ...
European Jews closley related and not converted Khazars
If you're European Jewish and meet another European member of the community, odds are you're at least 30th cousins. A ...
Night owl or early bird, your genes matter
A couple of weeks ago I asked students in one of my classes whether they were early risers or night ...
Ebola virus preys on human caretaking behaviors for transmission
As the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has spiraled out of control, affecting thousands of Liberians, Sierra Leonians, and Guineans, ...
Human language gene linked to early attentional multi-tasking
Neuroscientists have found that a gene mutation that arose more than half a million years ago may be key to ...
Ebola virus response “inadequate” to match new potential mutations
The virus poses new challenges: the possibility of mutations that would make containing its spread more difficult and fears it ...
Diet soda and sweeteners alter gut bacteria, contributing to obesity? Not so fast.
According to a just-released study in Nature, rather than helping you avoid consuming fat-producing calories, sugar-free sodas and 'diet' snacks ...
Criminal justice system needs easy and free access to DNA testing
Given the incredible power of DNA to exonerate the innocent and expose the guilty, it's alarming that a mountain of ...
More evidence IQ is in the genes
It was named the language gene before we really understood what it did. Now mice given the human version of ...
Advanced cancer screenings find early, slow growing cancers more often than fast aggressive ones
As cancer screenings grow more sophisticated, the chances of finding small, slow growing cancers has increased rapidly, at great cost ...
Is genetic screening for all a new eugenics?
In recent weeks, there’s been talk of three types of genetic testing transitioning from targeted populations to the general public: ...
As 60 becomes new definition of middle-aged, how is human society changing?
For millennia, if not for eons—anthropology continuously pushes backward the time of human origin—life expectancy was short. The few people ...
Media cycle helps pepetuate misleading ‘gene of the week’ cycle
Science writer David Dobbs has definitively described the voracious appetite of the “selfish gene” meme, pointing out that the notion ...
Live to be 100+? Extreme longevity research is futuristic privatized enterprise
When longevity research is privately funded, what happens when the money runs dry? ...
Louisiana govenor in evolution hot seat, was Rhodes scholar who studied biology
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal dodged three questions on Tuesday about whether he personally believes the theory of evolution explains the ...
