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.
3 billion years ago, a rock four times the size of Mount Everest hit Earth. Here’s how this kickstarted evolution
When Earth first formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, lava lakes sizzled under a thick greenhouse atmosphere during the Hadean ...
Here are the most important Artificial Intelligence innovations to track in 2024
AI’s problems will shape the agenda for researchers, regulators, and the public, not just in 2024 but for years to ...
$3 million barrier to sickle cell gene therapy: How prohibitive costs could limit practical benefits of newly-approved drugs
In a much-anticipated move, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has approved two new gene therapies for sickle cell disease ...
Here’s how and why early humans created our world of mostly dark-eyed dogs
Researchers suggest that human preferences for a friendly face may have steered the evolution of canine eye colour ...
Viewpoint: ‘Artificial intelligence poses a whole new threat to the already dangerous practice of heritable human genetic modification’
Artificial intelligence poses a whole new threat to the already dangerous practice of heritable human genetic modification ...
‘When you’re starving, hunger is like a demon’: Scientists finally grasping how hunger commandeers the brain
More than 1.9 billion adults worldwide are overweight and more than 650 million are obese, a condition correlated with a ...
‘Warning written in wood’: 200-year-old tree reveals silent climate distress signal sent by one of Earth’s longest-living organisms
Cutting-edge techniques are allowing researchers to observe how the rings from long-lived trees form in real time ...
Podcast: Inside global race to create first artificial eggs and sperm, enabling people of any age or sex to have genetically-related children
Get a glimpse into the global race to create the first artificial human embryos to see how the competition is ...
$2,500 whole genome sequencing per embryo: Tech startup claims to screen potential children for 1,200 genetic disorders, but experts not sure it’s worth the cost
Reproductive tech startup Orchid is now offering whole genome sequencing for embryos, giving prospective parents and their doctors information that ...
Maybe Vitamin D isn’t such the ‘miracle supplement as the hype—and many scientists—have long claimed
For a while vitamin D was looking like a bona fide health elixir. It was recognized a century ago as ...
Podcast: ‘Intelligence explosion’ — Deep space is too far away for humans to explore, but AI may offer a work-around by uploading our brains into the cloud
Futuristic objectives that are at the centre of the AI industry’s quest for superintelligence and hear about the Extropians, ...
Close cousins: Just 400,000 years ago, modern humans and Neanderthal lineages split, 100,000 years more recently than previous estimates
More evidence suggests that our species may have diverged from Neanderthals just 408,000 years ago, which is later than previous ...
The future creeps closer: While two-thirds of Americans say they’d pick an embryo based on genetic profiling, some concerns escalate
Nearly one third of those surveyed even say they would consider going through IVF for the sole purpose of such ...
Love on the brain: Here’s the science behind how relationships make us ‘weak in the knees’
Researchers have measured how a part of the brain is responsible for putting our loved one on a pedestal in ...
Weight-loss drugs, malaria vaccines and more: CRISPR innovations headline the science breakthroughs of 2023
CRISPR is the year’s top breakthrough not only because of heroic work done in the past 12 months, but also ...
Video: Two wombs, two babies — In ‘one in a million’ pregnancy, Alabama mother gives birth to twins over two days
A US woman with a rare double uterus has given birth twice in two days - after a "one in ...
Sperm donation is no longer anonymous. Where do we go from here?
Recent findings in behavioral science show the role of genetics in shaping certain individual characteristics ...
Galactic concerts: ‘What if traveling to space could yield incomparable beauty in the form of art and music?’
Within a decade, a trip off the planet could become as accessible as an airline ticket, and in 15-20 years, ...
After demoting a scientist and cutting her pay, University of Pennsylvania makes millions from her mRNA breakthroughs
School that once demoted Katalin Karikó and cut her pay has made millions of dollars from patenting her work ...
Inherited suicide risk: 12 genes related to severe depression discovered
Suicide attempt is strongly associated with psychiatric conditions, poor quality of life, traumatic experiences, and social or economic burden ...
Human evolution roundup: Here are last year’s 13 most fascinating findings on human ancestry
Smithsonian paleoanthropologists reveal thirteen of the year’s most fascinating findings about human origins ...
Over a million frozen embryos are left in limbo. Should they be donated?
Higher IVF success rates mean more embryos are being left unused—and more families wrestling with questions about what to do ...
Viewpoint: Tech Panic Cycle — AI could transform entertainment, education, health care, unless over wrought fears shut down innovation
Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have heightened imaginations about what the future holds ...
Video: Stone ring structures found in Neanderthal cave in France continue to fuel reassessment of our once scorned hominid cousins
We haven’t been very kind to Neanderthals since their remains were first unearthed in the 19th century, often characterizing them ...
Early Alzheimer’s diagnosis: Scanning the eye with AI tools could help us catch dementia 20 years before symptoms show up
RetiSpec developed an artificial-intelligence algorithm that it says can analyze results from an eye scanner to detect signs of Alzheimer’s ...
Is biological age testing useful or overrated?
New tests promise to tell you if you have the cells of a 30-year-old or a 60-year-old. Here’s what to ...
Drug-free pain management: Retraining the brain with ‘pain reprocessing therapy’ hopes to offer alternative to opioids
“Pain reprocessing therapy,” tries to train the brain not to send false pain signals. Some early results are promising ...
