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.
‘‘It could determine the future of the world’: Putin morphs from ethical opponent of gene editing humans to support for creating CRISPR-edited soldiers “without fear, without compassion, without regret or even pain.” It could happen soon
While known experiments with Crispr—to improve crops, modify malaria-carrying mosquitoes, treat cancer—are constantly expanding, no government has approved wielding the tool to ...
Collecting DNA from hundreds of thousands of detainees, Trump administration immensely expands immigration enforcement
The Trump administration is moving to collect DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people booked into federal immigration custody ...
Is AI the solution to combating soaring cases of scientific publishing fraud?
Today, ‘around one in 50 papers’ have patterns that suggest that they are from paper mills, says Adam Day, chief ...
Rejecting consensus science and following RFK, Jr.’s playbook, Texas sues Tylenol, claiming it knew the painkiller causes autism
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit ... against Tylenol-maker Kenvue and its former parent company, Johnson & Johnson, ...
The fake Tylenol-causes-autism scare has revived an ancient debate: When should you treat a fever?
An evolutionary feature more than 600 million years old, fevers are a common accompanyment of a wide range of infections by ...
‘She started having orgasms for the first time in years’: More and more women are embracing testosterone’s sex and energy jolt
Just as estrogen is a crucial hormone for men, testosterone is an important hormone for women, instrumental in the development ...
Vaccines, raw milk, fluoride, Tylenol: MAHA right-wing alliance floods state houses with hundreds of science-rejectionist bills
More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections – vaccines, milk safety and fluoride – have been introduced ...
Republican states win case striking down rule protecting transgender health care rights
A federal judge has ruled that federal anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in health care are unconstitutional, allowing legal discrimination ...
Should we use CRISPR gene editing to remake humanity?
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it,” Stewart Brand, the free-thinking philosopher of technology, wrote in ...
A new therapy has been developed that promoters claim can remove microplastics from the body. Is it safe? Does it work?
There is mounting evidence that microplastics and “forever chemicals” are infiltrating human bodies and endangering people’s health. ... Interventions to ...
Saving life from extinction: Why it’s critical to protect and preserve bacteria and other microbes
Hundreds of scientists have joined together to save a group of species from extinction, a group that might not seem ...
mRNA Covid vaccines rejected as dangerous by RFK, Jr. shown to spark an immune response that could aid cancer survival
The mRNA covid-19 vaccines seem to have an unexpected benefit: extending the lives of people being treated for cancers by boosting the ...
RFK, Jr. and his vaccine-skeptical acolytes at the CDC are recommending that we split childhood vaccines to allegedly prevent autism. That’s a scientifically dangerous idea
As anti-vaccine sentiment rises nationally, prominent people have proposed splitting combination vaccines into individual shots. For example, the new acting ...
AI chip-powered retinal implant shown to help blind victims see again
People who had lost their sight have regained the ability to read after receiving an innovative electronic eye implant paired ...
Vaccine rejectionist activists got Idaho to ban shot mandates. They’re now targeting the rest of the country
The Idaho Medical Freedom Act makes it illegal to require anyone to take a vaccine or receive “medical intervention.” Leslie ...
OpenAI’s ‘sovereign AI’ goes head-to-head with China’s
OpenAI has announced a number of projects this year with foreign governments to help build out what it has called their “sovereign AI” ...
Viewpoint: Dissecting HHS Secretary and tort lawyer RFK, Jr.’s Tylenol-autism scam: Billions of dollars of class action lawsuits
RFK Jr. is relying on select studies and questionable experts for his autism claims, using the bully pulpit of federal power to ...
ChatGPT and other generative AI suppresses brain activity. Is it slowly making us stupid?
With some MIT colleagues, [Nataliya] Kosmyna set up an experiment ... to monitor people’s brain activity while they wrote essays, ...
As you age, even a small amount of alcohol each week can increase the risk of dementia
For years, the common wisdom and science was that a little bit of alcohol wasn’t bad — and even beneficial ...
More than ¼ of Americans live with chronic pain. There may be a neurological ‘off button’ to block it
Arthritis. Endometriosis. Fibromyalgia. Multiple Sclerosis. Postherpetic neuralgia. Sometimes, chronic pain doesn’t even come with a diagnosis, but is the aftermath of ...
Rewriting nature: The promise and peril of gene editing wildlife to save it
[One] of the world's largest conservation groups will weigh in on how ... gene-editing tools should be used to aid ...
Latest Trump and RFK, Jr. health misinformation rabbit hole: No, aluminum in vaccines is not dangerous or causally linked to autism
“We want no aluminum in the vaccine,” Trump said during the White House press conference, surprising even some ardent anti-vaccine ...
Vaccine rejectionism spurring continued surge in U.S. measles cases
Nearly two months after a deadly, massive measles outbreak in Texas was declared over, the highly contagious disease continues to spread across ...
How social media promotes far-right extremism
Over the past decades, far-right extremists have carried out several attacks in the West. Many of them were radicalised through ...
Dr. Google gets an upgrade—Dr. AI is not so problematic. Here’s how to use it
Chances are high that you have used artificial intelligence to research your own medical concerns or will be tempted to ...
What do MAHA and MAGA supporters think about vaccines?
At the start of his second term, President Donald Trump established the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, chaired by Health and ...
Viewpoint: Revisiting the debate over genes and IQ
In The Bell Curve, Murray and Herrnstein argue that intelligence, as measured by an IQ score, is a crucial determinant of ...
