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.
Ancient skeletons reveal history of inequality
Contrary to popular belief and cinematic glorification, most archaeologists would say that the search for spectacular treasures isn’t their main ...
Why are those with schizophrenia dying from COVID at extraordinarily high rates? Scientists study links between immune system and psychiatric illness
Most of the time, the voices in Keris Myrick’s head don’t bother her. They stay in the background or say ...
How psilocybin rewires the brain to treat depression
Psilocybin is one of a number of psychedelics under investigation as a potential therapy for psychiatric disorders. In the last ...
Viewpoint: Anti-science vigilantism – Attacks target sociobiology pioneer EO Wilson
Was the renowned Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson wrongly convicted of racism and promoting race science in the court of ...
When does brain function peak? Scans show how brains grow and shrink
The human brain starts with a bang and ends with a whimper. That's the conclusion of a project that used ...
Is vanilla hard-wired to be our favorite scent?
From a list of ten unique scents, survey respondents from a variety of cultural backgrounds all ranked vanilla the most ...
Is evolution fact? Embrace of science closely linked to childhood education standards
Virtually every U.S. high-school student is required to study biology, at minimum, to earn a diploma. But the exact content ...
How to persuade vaccine reluctant to get a shot? Run a Donald Trump vaccine endorsement ad
An online ad campaign featuring former president Donald Trump boosted vaccination rates in counties where rates of Covid-19 shots were ...
Is humanity doomed because our population is growing too fast — or too slow? Here’s the skinny on human catastrophe scenarios
Will birthrates doom humanity? Tech billionaire Elon Musk sounded an old alarm in December when he claimed that declining births ...
Short sleepers: This genetic mutation allows some people to thrive on as little as 4 hours a night
Too many Americans are sleep-deprived. Although the overwhelming majority of adults needs at least seven hours of sleep per night, ...
Viewpoint: ‘Deep artificial intelligence’ — What it is, and we should be cautious about embracing Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain implant
"Neuralink" is a start-up created by Elon Musk in 2016. The company’s main aim is brain implants development by means ...
Personalized drug prescriptions? The future is now as support grows for expanding pharmacogenomic tests
Genetic testing to predict how individuals will respond to common medicines should be implemented without delay to reduce the risk ...
Infographic: Here is how experts think the COVID virus will evolve
As scientists who study how viruses evolve, we are often asked about the future of the coronavirus. Will it go ...
Why are middle-aged women 2 ½ times more likely to take antidepressants than men?
About one in five women ages 40 to 59 and nearly one in four women ages 60 and over used ...
One year along, long COVID still plagues victims and confounds scientists
The core experience of long Covid revolves around the unholy trinity of fatigue, brain fog and muscle pain. But there is ...
Rare bird phalluses: Stories of sexual variation in nature
Ninety-seven percent of all bird species have no phallus. Those that did, including ostriches, emus and kiwis, sported organs quite ...
Is the direct-to-consumer genetic testing boom fading?
At-home health testing company LetsGetChecked has acquired the genetic testing company Veritas Genetics and spinoff Veritas Intercontinental, it announced [March ...
How physician and biochemist Robert Malone went from falsely claiming to have invented the mRNA vaccine to becoming an infamous spreader of COVID disinformation
Dr. [Robert] Malone spent decades working in academic centers and with start-ups seeking to bring new medical treatments to market ...
How can we deal with information overload?
Neuroergonomics researchers are looking at what can be done to break through the chaos. They are following what happens in ...
Fall asleep with the TV on? Just one night of sleep with moderate light can can hurt your cardiovascular and metabolic health
New research suggests that one night of sleep with just a moderate amount of light may have adverse effects on ...
Even COVID researchers were not insulated from harassment and death threats
Nearly 2 in 5 Covid-19 researchers reported they had been harassed since the pandemic began, according to a new survey ...
How the search for mates across prehistoric Africa shaped human evolution
Ancient Africans in search of mates traded long-distance travels for regional connections starting about 20,000 years ago, an analysis of ...
Podcast: Silicon Valley tech moguls spend billions developing technologies to help us live longer. Is this just a pipe dream?
Billions of dollars are being pumped into technologies that hope to reduce the effects of ageing. Host Alok Jha explores ...
Tasmanian tiger back from the dead? 9 key steps to bringing extinct thylacine marsupial to Australian outback
Bringing extinct animals back from the dead is no longer the realm of science fiction but is fast becoming a ...
Viewpoint: ‘Race’ and racism are foundational prejudices in medicine
Abolition has been part of the American democratic experiment since the founding of this nation — a founding premised in ...
A glass of wine is good for you? Genetic study debunks popular wisdom, linking even modest drinking to cardiovascular disease risk
For decades, scientists have been studying how alcohol affects our bodies. Some studies have suggested modest amounts, such as a ...
Viewpoint: Are science journalists intentionally misreporting on COVID origins?
Two hypotheses have long been on the table. One is that the virus jumped naturally from some animal host, as ...
