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.
Viewpoint: Evolution is more than a Darwinian ‘selfish gene’ battle to the death
The idea that selfishness and greed are drivers of evolution, and therefore possess underlying virtue, has been around for over ...
‘Natural selection in real time’: Which species are most likely to adapt to climate change?
Climate change is exacerbating problems like habitat loss and temperatures swings that have already pushed many animal species to the ...
Population bomb, in reverse: Too few babies — not too many — is emerging as a major global problem
In Japan, people buy more diapers for the elderly than babies... And the population growth rate in the U.S. is ...
The smartest person in the cockpit: How Artificial Intelligence is guiding the emerging travel boom
A storm cell near Oklahoma City was likely to turn into a thunderstorm around the time Flight 1405 took off, ...
False link: No, milk does not increase cholesterol levels
A study published in the International Journal of Obesity looked at three large population studies and found that people who ...
Going back to your office for work may increase your productivity — and your weight. Here’s why
With millions of Americans vaccinated against COVID-19, many who have worked from home over the past year will be heading ...
CRISPR gene editing on the cusp of adding new gene drive tools to control disease-carrying mosquitoes
[D]espite decades of effort, vaccines have, for many [diseases like malaria and dengue], proved tricky to develop. Better, then, to ...
How genetic genealogy helped solve this 50-year old case of a teenage girl’s murder
Barry Lee Whelpley, 76, was arrested [June 2] at his home in Minnesota for the 1972 murder of Julie Ann ...
Brainless hydras can tell us a lot about the significance of sleep
It does not have a brain, or even much of a nervous system. And yet, new research shows, it sleeps ...
Viewpoint: Precision education? Genetic tests purporting to ascertain students’ educational capabilities under fire
Genetic tests claiming to predict people’s intellectual aptitudes or how much education they are likely to get are readily available ...
Too smart for our own good: How artificial superintelligence could lead to humanity’s demise
Imagine systems, whether biological or artificial, with levels of intelligence equal to or far greater than human intelligence. Radically enhanced ...
Coronavirus quarantines have caused a huge spike in ‘cybersickness’
The pandemic has forced most of us online at incomparable rates. It’s where we’ve worked, taken classes, attended parties, and ...
Humanized pigs: How scientists bioengineered swine with human immune systems to accelerate research on viruses, vaccines, cancer and stem cell therapeutics
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires all new medicines to be tested in animals before use in people. Pigs make ...
‘Mixed-handers’ make up less than 1% of the world’s population — except in the NBA where 1 in 12 stars play and write with different hands. What’s going on?
LeBron James writes with his left hand, eats with his left hand and uses his dominant left hand for almost ...
Is machine-based mind control on the near horizon?
Laser beams, ultrasound, electromagnetic pulses, mild alternating and direct current stimulation and other methods now allow access to, and manipulation ...
COVID’s positive side-effect: fewer contagious illnesses. How can we make that last?
Many of us have likely noticed what the data is bearing out: Strict social distancing and masking protocols not only ...
Does DNA ‘determine’ our health? The way you live your life can significantly modulate the effects of our genetic endowment
The study of genetics has always been an attempt to understand our biologically determined fate. Many of us know of ...
Symptoms tell us only so much about the roots of depression. Here’s a new set of tools that could unlock the physiology of the brain, leading to cutting-edge therapies
[W]hat actually causes depression? Is there a tiny but important area of the brain that researchers should focus on? And ...
‘Every time you sit down in the subway, you are likely commuting with an entirely new species’: 12,000 new bacteria and viruses discovered in 6 continent study
About 12,000 bacteria and viruses collected in a sampling from public transit systems and hospitals around the world from 2015 ...
Video: An extra thumb? Here’s a real life demonstration of how it could change how we live
A thorough research carried out by the University College London (UCL) in collaboration with Dani Clode Design, wanted to see ...
Homo sapiens reevaluated: Why the definition of ‘modern human’ is undergoing a revamp
One definition of a species is: "Groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups," according ...
Viewpoint: Vaccines and autism — How Hollywood fame and fortune can lead to dangerous promotion of false cures, false causes and false hopes
Many of you will remember when, in 2007, actress and former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy published her book Louder Than ...
Many mammals can ‘breathe’ in a unique way — through the anus. Could this insight spur change in how we treat severe respiratory failure in humans?
It is established that humans, much like many other mammals out there, breathe oxygen either through their nostrils or mouth ...
Viewpoint: Zombie pseudoscience — Evolution and intelligence studies are still shadowed by a focus on brain size
Phrenology is the detailed study of cranial sizes and shapes as a proxy for brain size and shape... Phrenology has ...
Sprawling science disinformation network: Steve Bannon teamed up with Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui to spread COVID misinformation through ‘thousands of social media accounts’
A sprawling online network tied to Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has become a potent platform for disinformation in the United ...
Could we cut out cancer genes using CRISPR gene editing?
An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. Fusion oncogenes are cancer-causing genes that are made ...
‘Magic mushroom’ migraine relief? Single dose of psilocybin shows significant impact in reducing intractable headaches
Migraine treatments can be either preventive or abortive, and they range from prescription drugs, to over-the-counter medications like Advil Migraine, ...
