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.
NIH genomics researchers to share data and clarify informed consent
Scientists who work on genomics and are funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) must post their data ...
Richard Dawkins’ moral policing aside, new era of fetal diagnostics underway
What would you do if you were pregnant with a fetus affected by a severe disorder? Abortion is often the ...
British girl explains life as child of three-parent IVF
Alana Saarinen loves playing golf and the piano, listening to music and hanging out with friends. In those respects, she's ...
Another report of parent refusing child with genetic problem born by surrogate
A British surrogate mother of twins has said the intended mother rejected one of the babies because she was born ...
When the media hypes epigenetics, mothers take the blame
There's a lot of talk about epigenetics in the news, but scientists still don't know what it all means. A ...
California stem cell industry reviving
Almost three years after a Bay Area company shut down the world's first clinical trial of a therapy using embryonic ...
Could genetic testing make having a disabled child immoral?
The summer's "ice bucket challenge" has brought an extraordinary amount of attention to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease ...
Nap and coffee combo clears neurotransmitters so buzz more effective
It might sound crazy: conventional wisdom is that caffeine interferes with sleep. But if you caffeinate immediately before napping and sleep for ...
Fish that walks helps explain how humans colonized land
An unusual species of fish that can walk and breathe air shows that these animals may be more capable of ...
Native North American peoples arrived in multiple migrations, new research suggests
A new "genetic prehistory" provides the best picture ever assembled of how the North American Arctic was populated, from 6,000 ...
Among Ebola’s victims, hospital workers and researchers
The ongoing Ebola virus disease outbreak is taking an appalling toll on health workers in West Africa. More than 240 have been infected ...
How did we tame wild animals?
Genes controlling the development of the brain and nervous system were fundamentally important for animal domestication, according to new research ...
Your microbiome isn’t just in you: It’s all around you
As I type these words at my desk, I’m seeding my house with bacteria. I touch the desk, the light ...
Return of bubonic plague sparks search for new vaccines
Plague arrived in Europe like the opening of a Clive Cussler novel, on a ship of death carrying corpses of ...
Brain, behavior and genetics
The link between our genetics and how we behave is the topic of much speculation, some if it highly controversial ...
HIV drug trials disproportionately include white patients, to detriment of African Americans
Many African-Americans may not be getting effective doses of the HIV drug maraviroc, a new study from Johns Hopkins suggests ...
IBM’s Watson will be key tool in genetic analysis
International Business Machines Corp., on Wednesday launched a computer system that can quickly identify patterns in massive amounts of data, ...
Emotions connected to memories can be altered, at least in mice
By artificially activating circuits in the brain, scientists have turned negative memories into positive ones. They gave mice bad memories ...
DNA identification for wood may help cut down on illegal trade of natural resources
As a professor at Texas Tech, Dr. Chuck Cannon has been, among other things, working to create a system of ...
Riken institute scales down stem cell research following scandal
A scandal that started with a few suspicious images has led Japan's most prestigious research institute to slash its stem-cell ...
Portable DNA sequencer processes samples quickly and accurately
DNA sequencing is crucial for identifying and tracking nasty viruses like E. coli and the flu. But current tabletop-size DNA ...
Personal genomics: Care to update your haplogroup status page?
Personalized genomics offers the opportunity to revolutionize medical care and our understanding of disease. But many first adopters won’t wait ...
Food labels: Gimmicks or guides to the future of food?
We are experiencing a labeling orgy. Consumers with no gluten allergies are snapping up gluten free producers. Non-GMO labels pump ...
Do strangers who look alike act alike?
When twins have similar personalities, is it mainly because they share so much genetic material or because their physical resemblance ...
Genes underlying hangovers can aid in understanding alcoholism
Some people get hangovers after a night of drinking, while others don't, and the reason may be in their genes, ...
Ebola drug ‘ZMapp’ shows potential of biopharmed medicine
A handful of patients in the largest-ever Ebola outbreak have been treated with an experimental drug called ZMapp. American missionaries ...
GM yeast can replace poppies in producing opiates
Severe pain? Reach for the yeast. Genetically engineered yeasts can now efficiently produce a range of opiates, including morphine and ...
