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.
Slow mental decline begins in your 20s? New evidence suggests brains don’t slow down until after 60
It is widely accepted as one of life’s bleak but unavoidable facts: as we get older, our brains get slower ...
From sex to drugs to alcohol to gambling, addiction ruins lives. This new book ‘The Urge’ offers insights and hope
Our culture, ever on the lookout for easy, unambiguous answers to the predicament of being flawed and often unhappy humans, ...
Depression found to play causal role in Alzheimer’s disease development
Epidemiological data have long linked depression with Alzheimer's disease (AD), a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive dementia that affects nearly ...
How DNA analysis uncovered the illegal elephant ivory trade
As few as three major criminal groups are responsible for smuggling the vast majority of elephant ivory tusks out of ...
‘A Genetic History of the Americas’: In new book, geneticist claims first Americans did not arrive in North America via Siberian land bridge, as is widely believed
It’s Anthropology 101. At the end of the last ice age, around 13,000 years ago, retreating glaciers created an inland ...
Genetics has come a long way since Gregor Mendel mapped inheritance using peas: Deconstructing the muddle of genetics and inheritance
The year was 1900. Three European botanists — one Dutch, one German and one Austrian — all reported results from ...
Alzheimer’s treatments on the horizon? Dramatic advances ushered in by whole genome sequencing
In this wide-ranging interview, conducted by contributing editor Malorye Allison Branca, [researcher Rudy] Tanzi doesn't hold back. Gathering evidence from ...
Genetic gold rush: Next generation CRISPR gene editing techniques poised to develop new wave of targeted drugs
In the 10 years leading up to 2012, 200 papers mentioned CRISPR. In 2020 alone, there were more than 6,000 ...
It’s been almost 20 years since the first crude map of the human genome was released. Here’s what we’ve learned
In October 1990, biologists officially embarked on one of the century’s most ambitious scientific efforts: reading the 3 billion pairs ...
Genetic innovations top Nature’s list of most anticipated science advances of 2022
From gene editing to protein-structure determination to quantum computing, here are seven technologies that are likely to have an impact ...
Deciphering the confusing puzzle of how modern humans developed from ape-like ancestors
How did modern humans develop from their ape-like ancestors? When did they start walking on two legs and making tools? ...
Can genetic screening improve your chances of finding a successful career?
We might not realise or give it any thought but the type of work we prefer, whether we pursue a ...
Red Queen Hypothesis: Why are most humans programmed to want to procreate?
Through meiosis, the process that underlies sexual reproduction, the gametes must form in their respective bodies, then the member of ...
How genetics explains in part why Black women are more likely to to die of breast cancer
Black women have a 31% breast cancer mortality rate – the highest of any U.S. racial or ethnic group. Additionally, ...
Genomics Beyond Health: UK considers impact of genes on sports, education, and crime
A new wide-ranging report Genomics Beyond Health published [January 26] by the Government Office for Science investigates how genomics could ...
How understanding human genetics and calorie restrictive diets can extend our lifespans
Decades of research has shown that limits on calorie intake by flies, worms, and mice can enhance life span in ...
‘Life as We Made It’: Evolutionary biologist illuminates how humans have tinkered with evolution over thousands of years
With genetic engineering, humans have recently unleashed a surreal fantasia: pigs that excrete less environment-polluting phosphorus, ducklings hatched from chicken ...
How artificial intelligence is helping diagnose rare diseases
Many sufferers of rare diseases endure an odyssey until the correct diagnosis is made. "The goal is to detect such ...
Video: ‘Ultimately, I want to build a heart for sick kids’: Watch these robotic fish ‘swim’ using lab-grown cardiac muscle
Scientists have built a school of robotic fish powered by human heart cells. The fish, which swim on their own, ...
‘Eye color is as specific as a thumbprint’: Why your eyes are completely unique
As recently as the aughts, it was believed that eye color was determined by a single gene — brown, dominant; ...
‘If robots that we programmed decide to get rid of us…then that’s just the next step in evolution”: Why AI may be the only way humans survive our self-destructive ways
A couple of years ago, right before the pandemic began, a friend told me an unsettling story of an interaction ...
Did humans leave (or try to leave) Africa in waves? A 1.5-million-year-old vertebrae found in Israel is challenging evolutionary canon
Scientists had debated whether ancient humans dispersed from Africa in a one-time event or in multiple waves. Now, researchers have ...
Loneliness shown to triple risk of dementia
Dementia incidence tripled in lonely older adults who otherwise would be expected to have relatively low risk based on age ...
‘Little brain’: What is the science behind superfluid thinking?
Until recently, the human cerebellum was viewed primarily as a brain region that's sole job was to coordinate motor movements; ...
How are animals and plants adapting to our increasingly warming and polluted world?
Peppered moths living in industrial areas of Britain were getting darker, better for blending in against the soot-blackened buildings and ...
A genetic history: ‘Origin’ book looks at how the Americas were settled
Scientific understanding of the peopling of the Americas is as unsettled as the Western Hemisphere once was. Skeletal remains, cultural ...
Mom brain: How can science explain ‘maternal instincts’?
Is there such a thing as maternal instinct? Not exactly, scientists say. It is true that while pregnant, breastfeeding and ...
