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.
Humans are water-saving apes? Homo sapiens’ ability to run on less water may have driven our evolution
Our bodies are constantly losing water: when we sweat, go to the bathroom, even when we breathe. That water needs ...
One gene dramatically increases our chances of getting tuberculosis. Here is how evolution mostly knocked it out
Tuberculosis is the deadliest infectious disease in human history, responsible for the deaths of about a billion people in the ...
What makes a face attractive? How AI interprets the subjective notions of human beauty
Researchers at the University of Helsinki and University of Copenhagen investigated whether a computer would be able to identify the ...
What does it mean to have a ‘near death’ experience?
Given that near-death experiences happen with limited warning, they are almost impossible to test. “We’re dealing with a very short ...
A protein inherited from Neanderthals may offer limited protection against COVID-19
Recent advances in proteomic technology - that is, the capacity to isolate and measure hundreds of circulating proteins at once ...
3 myths of how the brain works dispelled
As a neuroscientist, I see scientific myths about the brain repeated regularly in the media and corners of academic research ...
Kathleen Folbigg: Convicted serial baby killer could be exonerated as rare genetic mutations may explain her children’s deaths
Kathleen Folbigg is in jail for killing her children as infants between 1990 and 1999. [Recently] her supporters released a ...
Could common dietary supplement choline reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s?
The human gene for apolipoprotein E (APOE) comes in three variants. APOE4 is linked to a higher risk for Alzheimer’s, ...
‘Zombie Apocalypse’: The CDC’s guidelines on how we might cope if ‘The Walking Dead’ come to life is a must read
There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s ...
Viewpoint: Spermageddon and endocrine disrupting chemicals? Shanna Swain book claiming common chemicals pose catastrophic dangers is deeply flawed
In 2017, [epidemiologist Shanna] Swan, along with other scientists, published a meta-analysis, an aggregation of existing research. It said that ...
What did Lucy and the Taung child look like? Early human ancestors get reconstructed faces
For the reconstructions of Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), the oldest and most complete human ancestor when researchers discovered her 3.2 million-year-old ...
April Florida Keys release of GMO mosquitoes engineered to curtail Zika, dengue and malaria on track despite protests
The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District [recently announced] a wide and vague planned range of deployment for the lab-designed mosquitoes ...
Cancer and cocktails? Physician groups urge that alcohol should carry a warning label
In recent years, a growing number of medical and public health groups have introduced public awareness campaigns warning people to ...
Why your sex designated at birth may not match your genetics
There are lots of different conditions that fall under the umbrella of intersex. In humans, the phenotypic sex is usually ...
10 body parts humans lost to evolution
Like other plants and creatures, the human body is the result of millions of years of natural selection. The body ...
Video: ‘Cognitive enhancers’ — Can you boost your brain power naturally?
How do so-called 'smart drugs' work, and what are their risks? Watch the video here ...
Virus wars: The evolutionary battle between humans and COVID-19
The past (horrible, tragic, no-good, very bad) year might have seemed like a straightforward battle between scientists and a virus ...
Video: Are there benefits to exercising in cold weather?
Research suggests exposure to the cold can help activate brown fat cells which burn more calories. Does this translate to ...
The Human Genome Project has a diversity problem. Here’s what’s being done to address it
The Human Genome Project shed light on our species in 2001, but it was a patchwork of different humans' genes ...
‘Hunting brains’: How and why early human brains more than doubled in size
In recent years, more and more evidence has been accumulated to the effect that humans were a major factor in ...
Healthy weight gain? Genes that increase the risk of obesity may protect as many as 45% of overweight people from heart disease
People living with obesity tend to have unhealthy glucose and lipid levels in their blood, as well as high blood ...
Evolution of language: Did Neanderthals have the ability to speak?
The evolution of language, and the linguistic capacities in Neanderthals in particular, is a long-standing question in human evolution. "For ...
Physically active older adults are as much as 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s
Young people need enrichment to build cognitive capacity, while adults, especially older ones, need it to maintain cognitive capacity and ...
Dreamers can ‘talk’ to scientists and solve problems while asleep
People dream every night, but scientists don't fully understand why we dream. Studying dreams is difficult because people often forget ...
44 zettabytes: All the world’s data could be stored in a test tube. Here’s how
The amount of global data is estimated to be around 44 zettabytes. A 15-million-square-foot warehouse can hold 1 billion gigabytes, ...
Our early human ancestors may have climbed trees and swung along branches like chimpanzees
When Texas A&M University’s Cody Prang was taking his first biological anthropology course as an undergraduate at the University of ...
The US is experiencing the mildest flu season in memory. Here’s why
The U.S. is seeing historically low levels of influenza this season, which started in September 2020. This time last year, ...
