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.
Success for new embryonic genetic testing
Doctors in London have reported the first pregnancy in Europe from a new IVF procedure that checks embryos for genetic disorders before they are ...
Will whole-genome sequencing become the norm?
The first thing Debbie Jorde noticed about her newborn daughter was that her arms were bent at unnatural angles. She ...
Stem cells found in nerves of teeth
The soft, living part of the tooth—tooth pulp—is known to contain a small reserve of stem cells. These stem cells, scientists ...
Scientists attempt to determine role of epigenetics in cancer
You could be forgiven for thinking of cancer as a genetic disease. Sure, we know it can be triggered by ...
Google wants to define health using Big Data
Google's getting in on the big-genome-analysis game with the "Baseline Project," which seeks to examine gather information (genomic and otherwise) ...
Feathered dinosaurs may have been more common than previously believed
A new dinosaur species — one with feathers — has been discovered in Russia. The finding could mean that feathers ...
Can scientists save the declining New England cottontail from extinction?
Scientists with the NH Agricultural Experiment Station are working to restore New Hampshire and Maine's only native rabbit after new ...
DNA portrait of Puerto Rican ancestry
National Geographic’s Genographic Project researches locations where different groups historically intermixed to create a modern day melting pot. Collaborating with 326 ...
Promise of CRISPR gene editing–and the challenges
Two papers published in the last week were signal events for agricultural genomics. First was the draft of the huge, and ...
Genetic link to neurodegenerative diseases found
Researchers from the Jackson Laboratory say they have pinpointed a mechanism behind neurodegeneration in mice, one that involves a defect in transfer ...
Anti-biotech Center for Genetics and Society exaggerates dangers of gene editing technology
A healthy public debate is emerging over the revolutionary new genetic engineering tool known as CRISPR. Challenging anti-GMO dogma, it's ...
New genetic factors in Parkinson’s found
WASHINGTON: Scientists have identified more than two dozen genetic risk factors involved in Parkinson's disease, including six that had not ...
E. coli radiation resistance genes may aid cancer research
A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin has identified 46 genes in Escherichia coli that are necessary for its survival ...
Protein expression in aging brain linked to memory deficits
Even during healthy aging, we slowly lose our ability to learn and remember new things. Often, cognitive decline is associate with ...
Newly discovered virus modulates bacteria in gut, aids immune system
The most common viruses in your body don’t make you ill. Instead, they infect the legions of microbes that live in ...
Employing supercomputers in studying neurological conditions
Recent published research in the Journal of Clinical Investigationdemonstrates how changes in dopamine signaling and dopamine transporter function are linked to ...
Three-parent IVF policy in Britain raises ethical debate
Three parent babies born from a controversial IVF technique which uses the donor DNA to fix genetic defects will never ...
For Jamaican athletes, speediness is in the genes
Let's put political correctness aside: World class athletic ability is in the genes, and the success of Jamaican sprinting just ...
Twins study sheds light on language development
A study of 473 sets of twins followed since birth found that compared to single-born children, 47 percent of 24-month-old ...
Genes reveal biological processes underlying schizophrenia
Scientists found more than 100 genes that make people more susceptible to schizophrenia- 83 of which have never been pinpointed ...
Is susceptibility to procrastination genetic?
Want to hear my favorite procrastination joke? I’ll tell you later. Piers Steel, a psychologist at the University of Calgary, ...
Artificial chip mimics bone marrow, generates platelets
Scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have developed a scalable, next-generation platelet bioreactor to generate fully functional human platelets ...
Climate change driving diversity in seal population
Although climate change continues to stir up opportunities and challenges for animals across the world, new research published today in Nature shows the ups and ...
DNA replication model provides new tool for molecular geneticists
Human cells make new copies of their DNA billions of times each day, a crucial process upon which life itself ...
Promising new diabetes treatment overcomes negative side effects
In Type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system destroys the cells that produce insulin, leaving your body unable to make ...
Raising the dead: ‘De-extinction’ science could lead to rescue of threatened wildlife
Philip Seddon, zoologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, addresses the fears of regenerating species as a tactic ...
Largest-ever genetic study of schizophrenia cements genetic links
By identifying more than 100 new distinct genetic regions associated with schizophrenia, an international team of hundreds of scientists may ...