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.
No, President Biden is not gunning to ruin your Memorial Day Weekend and ban hamburgers (as rightwing politicians and media allege)
[A]ll Republicans want to talk about right now is meat, and how Joe Biden is planning to limit you to ...
400,000 people – that’s how many die from malaria each year. Here’s how gene editing and gene drives could prevent those deaths
The estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 409,000 in 2019. There is an urgent need to find new ways ...
‘Lucy the Human Chimp’: Meet the chimpanzee raised with people and Janice, her caretaker, who tried to integrate her back into the wild
Lucy the Human Chimp, a new television documentary from HBO and Channel 4, explores... the story of one unique relationship: ...
Gender bias: When people express the same amount of pain, female patients’ experiences are viewed as less intense
In a recent study published by the Journal of Pain, co-authored by Elizabeth Losin, assistant professor of psychology and director of ...
Video: Synthetic life? Scientists have created xenobots that move, remember, heal and work together in groups
Biologists and computer scientists from Tufts University and the University of Vermont have created novel, tiny self-healing living machines from ...
Getting high on hypoxia: Ancient humans went deep into caves in search of euphoria, and depicted the experience in their paintings
As archaeologist Yafit Kedar from Tel-Aviv University in Israel was in France enjoying some cave art deep within the ground, ...
Sex differences: Stress during pregnancy affects babies’ physical and mental health — but males and females are impacted differently
In a new longitudinal study where individuals are followed over a course of 45 years, [researcher Jill] Goldstein and her ...
Challenging evolutionary dogma: Is early human history solely linked to the southern African coast rich in marine resources?
The origins of modern humans and modern human cognition are thought to lie in southern Africa, as suggested by numerous ...
Dating apps, gay sex and drug use: Syphilis running rampant after eradication appeared on the horizon
In 2000, syphilis rates were so low that public health officials believed eradication was on the horizon. But the rates ...
Podcast: Ezra Klein and Walter Isaacson discuss how CRISPR is poised to redirect the future course of evolution
When future generations look back on this moment in history, will they remember the daily political fights — or will ...
Ancient humans mated with Neanderthals as recently as 45,000 years ago
Analyses of DNA found in human fossils from around [45,000 years ago] — the oldest known human remains in Europe ...
Viewpoint: Can we reach a ’sensitive consensus’ on the personal and divisive issue of changing gender identity? Here’s an attempt
If we were going to construct a test-case for how dysfunctional our politics have become, it would be hard to ...
‘Brain glue’: A new way to help people with traumatic brain injuries
Severe traumatic brain injuries, the sort caused by life-threatening accidents or assault that can send people into comas, are very ...
How does CRISPR’s ‘on-off switch’ work? How will it revolutionize genetic research and the development of therapies?
[R]esearchers have published perhaps the greatest advance since 2013 – a way to use CRISPR as an on-off switch for ...
Jurassic Park in real life? We have the technology to create ‘super exotic novel species,’ Neuralink co-founder claims
Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak, who started the brain-computer interface company with Elon Musk, has claimed that humans have the technology ...
Is it safe to use growth hormones to treat unusually short children? Here are the pros and cons
Experts estimate that 60 percent to 80 percent of children who are short for their age do not have a ...
What are the biological roots of psychosis? Studying mice offers a window into understanding human hallucinations
Psychosis occurs when a person loses touch with reality. During a psychotic episode people may become delusional — acquire false ...
Like meat? Early humans almost exclusively ate protein and hunted large animals for 2 million years
In a study recently published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, academics from Tel Aviv University in Israel and ...
Only 5 senses? There’s actually 6 more, and here’s how they work
Aristotle’s desperately outdated five sense model may still be popular, but it vastly under-estimates our extraordinary human capacity for sensing ...
1/3 of American adults can now legally smoke marijuana. Here is how weed affects your brain and body, for good and bad
Marijuana can make you feel good. One of weed's active ingredients, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) interacts with the brain's reward system, the ...
CRISPRoff: Gene editing epigenetic method allows researchers to turn most genes in the human genome on and off without altering DNA sequences
Over the past decade, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has revolutionized genetic engineering, allowing scientists to make targeted changes to ...
‘Great ape-like brains’: Early humans who first ventured out of Africa 1.5 million years ago had ‘monkey brains’
Early humans still had great ape-like brains, according to a new study that found modern humans evolved to have our ...
A golden age of gene therapy is now in sight
To date, just two in vivo gene therapies have been approved in the United States. Both are for what [Duke ...
The incredible shrinking heart: Astronaut Scott Kelly’s heart shrunk by ¼ during his year in space, raising concerns about Mars travel
In a study published on [March 29] in the journal Circulation, scientists reported that the largest chamber of the heart ...
The ancient origins of close friendships
Quite possibly, our strong desire for close friends evolved among our early ancestors because having a close friend improved one’s ...
‘Tearing up the receipts for the previous day’s stresses’: How nightmares have helped us emotionally navigate COVID
For people on the frontline [of the COVID pandemic,] dreams became nightmares. Of 114 doctors and 414 nurses working in ...
An ‘off button’ for pain? CRISPR could stop the opioid crisis by tackling chronic pain at the source
[In 2006, researchers found a family in Pakistan with] mutations in a gene called SCN9A. Two other families in northern ...
