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.
Scientists successfully test three different Zika vaccines on monkeys
The race to develop a safe and effective vaccine against the Zika virus got one step closer [on August 4], ...
Why men may have evolved better than women at reconciling with rivals
Men's historical dominance of the workplace may, in part, be because of their ability to reconcile with enemies after conflict, ...
Have Democrats exploited Zika for political purposes?
The Zika virus is only beginning to hit the U.S. mainland, but its political exploitation is already an epidemic. ...
Neither good ‘microbes’ nor ‘bad microbes’ truly exist
[For centuries,] [m]icrobes became synonymous with squalor and sickness. They became foes for us to annihilate and repel. Today, we ...
Cell therapy could deliver huge blow against cancer
Dr. [Steven] Rosenberg, Dr. Carl H. June...and Dr. Michel Sadelain...have been at the forefront of this research for decades,...[bringing] to ...
Worries about artificial human enhancement persist among Americans
[According to] an extensive survey conducted by the Pew Research Center...[s]ixty-eight percent [of over 4,000 Americans] were somewhat or very ...
Cancer doctors optimistic over success of immunotherapy
Harnessing the immune system to fight cancer, long a medical dream, is becoming a reality. Remarkable stories of tumors melting ...
Precision medicine revolution moves to developing world
Colon cancer is less common in India than in the U.S., but it tends to affect younger people and to ...
Recent cultural differences accelerated evolutionary changes in modern humans
The first solid evidence of natural selection in recent human populations was found in blood. In addition to blood type, ...
Scientists gradually identifying genes linked to depression
In a key advance for the study of depression, a comprehensive scan of human DNA has turned up the apparent ...
While no gene ‘causes’ mental illness, some genes make people more sensitive to environment
The same genes could make a person feel happy or depressed, depending on their environment. Combining research on genetics and ...
Synthetic biologists developing cells programmed to target, destroy cancer
Synthetic biology might be ready to graduate from cells engineered to perform only one task to multiple cells in a ...
Science communicators condemn Facebook’s censorship of pro-science “We Love GMOs and Vaccines”
Anti-GMO and anti-vaccine activists--many of them are the same--have manipulated Facebook to shut down a pro science site, stirring sharp ...
Boy’s remains, 3-D recreation offer insight into progression of human speech
He was a young boy of about 10 who died in the rugged hills of what is now the southern ...
Gene fix for muscle wasting may help improve gene treatments, save lives
The breakdown of muscle often accompanies chronic or long-term disease, making disease worse and sometimes hastening death, and doctors have ...
DNA testing can take you on the ride of your lifetime
Genealogy — thanks in part to genetic testing of companies like Ancestry.com, National Geographic and the PBS series “Finding Your ...
German institute deploys transgenics to fight harmful insects without toxins
South America is fighting a battle against tiger mosquitoes that transmit yellow fever, dengue fever and the Zika virus. In ...
Autism-gene connections deepen, undermining GMO and vaccine claims
A large proportion of autism research begins with and is centered upon external presentations of the disorder, primarily behavioral manifestations ...
Human enhancement revolution: Science and ethics in precarious balance
Human enhancement is at least as old as human civilization. Up to this point in history, however, most biomedical interventions, ...
Humans who can’t feel pain pointing way to non-addictive painkillers
Genes linked to pain detection and perception may be physiological targets for new, non-addictive painkillers ...
Is Alzheimer’s blood test too good to be true?
Anyone who has ever visited a doctor’s office is familiar with the use of blood tests for the diagnosis of ...
Great minds grow alike? Skulls of Neanderthals, modern humans show remarkable similarities
Evidence from Neanderthals’ skulls suggests that their large brains grew in the same way as ours do. That in turn ...
Baby making moves from bedroom to the laboratory
The future of baby-making is not in a bed, or in the back seat of a car. It's in a ...
Problems emerge in US direct-to-consumer stem cell clinic market
Leigh Turner and Paul Knoepfler recently published an important paper in Cell Stem Cell on stem cell clinics in the US. Turner is a University of ...
Consumer beware: NIH database of cost-free-trials includes numerous ‘for a fee’ tests
The 16-year-old [ClinicalTrials.gov] website is the most comprehensive such database publicly available in the United States, with listings for nearly 220,000 ...
If a parent has Alzheimer’s, are her children destined to get it too?
The most common question I get asked is 'Will my child get Alzheimer's disease?' ... Those of us who are ...
23andMe mobilizes its massive genome database to unravel depression clues
A scientific expedition into the DNA of more than 400,000 customers of gene-testing company 23andMe has uncovered the first major ...
