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.
‘Forever chemicals’ are not forever: Bacteria easily cultivated in a lab break down PFAS
A research team from Catholic University in Piacenza has isolated about 20 bacterial species from PFAS-contaminated soil in the Veneto region. These ...
As RFK. Jr. guts science-based vaccine agency, groups move to form an independent panel
In the wake of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to shake up a key federal vaccine advisory committee, ...
Liberal majority on Wisconsin Supreme Court overturns pre-Civil War abortion ban
The Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidated a state abortion ban...that was enacted in 1849 and had been dormant for the last ...
Changing theories on how the universe works
Intelligent life is extremely unlikely, and we pose the question only because we are the supremely rare exception. ...[A]n interdisciplinary ...
$13 billion dollar challenge: Congress poised to mull legislation that could help cool the explosion in ambulance-chasing tort cases
A bill introduced by US Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) puts reasonable checks on third-party litigation finance, and legal reform advocates and consumers should ...
Viewpoint: Formerly anonymous author of May HHS recommendation limiting pediatric gender surgeries reflects on report’s hostile reception
In May, the Department of Health and Human Services published a comprehensive review of treatments for gender dysphoria in minors that was swiftly criticized, ...
Viewpoint: Convoluted SCOTUS decision upholds Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify users’ ages, but confusions abound
The Supreme Court upheld a Texas anti-pornography law...that is nearly identical to a federal law it struck down more than two decades ...
Investigative journalism at risk: Calls for stronger legal protections against corporate and political pressure
A recent convening at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in Chicago brought together leading scholars and practitioners who ...
Viewpoint: ‘Gavi has ignored the science’: RFK, Jr. pulls funding from international vaccine agency
The U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has moved to undermine public immunization programs in the United States, ...
How far has the CRISPR revolution in medicine come?
In 2016, scientists conducted the first CRISPR-related clinical trial involving human recipients and demonstrated the possibility and safety of its clinical application ...
‘Wildly distorting reality’: Some A.I. chatbots go down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorse ‘wild, mystical belief systems’
[Tech] journalists at The New York Times have received quite a few...messages, sent by people who claim to have unlocked ...
Here’s how creationists have creatively tried to undermine the teachings of evolution in America’s classrooms since the Scopes trial in 1925
Bans on teaching evolution prevailed ... until high school teacher Susan Epperson took on Arkansas’ version [in the 1960s] As Science News wryly ...
How should we regulate human-created stem-cell embryos
The stem cell-based embryo model (SCBEM) takes advantage of the flexibility of pluripotent stem cells (non-reproductive cells that can give ...
Viewpoint: How AGI (artificial general intelligence) threatens to undermine what it means to be human
Predictions about the impacts of artificial general intelligence (AGI) often focus on societal disruptions, such as job displacement or the ...
Who’s my daddy? Offspring of two male mice father a child
For the first time, mice born to two fathers have grown up and produced offspring, scientists in China have revealed ...
Viewpoint: The hubris of tech billionaires’ ‘ideology of technological salvation’
Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others may have slightly different goals and ambitions in the near term, but ...
How testosterone and estrogen have driven human evolution
What makes us human? Most would say our minds. The ability to think, empathize, and build complex societies sets us ...
Alien chronicles: Here’s how the Pentagon fabricated evidence and allowed rumors to fester to cover up its secret-weapons programs
A tiny Pentagon office had spent months investigating conspiracy theories about secret Washington UFO programs when it uncovered a shocking ...
Medicine vs. MAGA: Doctors and Insurers Scramble as RFK Jr. Dismantles U.S. Vaccine System
Professional medical societies, pharmacists, state health officials and vaccine manufacturers, as well as a new advocacy group, are mobilizing behind ...
AI chatbots talk dirty
AI companions like Replika are designed to engage in intimate exchanges, but people use general-purpose chatbots for sex talk too, despite ...
Viewpoint: ‘The Trump administration’s reckless assaults on U.S. science are endangering the nation’
The Trump administration’s reckless assaults on U.S. science are endangering the nation. If allowed to continue, they will lead to ...
Viewpoint: How to engage with a vaccine skeptic
...In the United States, about 20% of parents are hesitant about vaccines — one reason for an outbreak of measles ...
AI gobbles up an enormous amount of energy—but its creators won’t say how much
“People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, wrote in an aside in ...
‘Screen addiction’ and suicidal behavior in children and adolescents
The amount of time kids spent on social media, mobile phones and video games wasn’t associated with more internalizing symptoms ...
‘China’s Frankenstein’ He Jiankui relocates to Houston to continue his renegade approach to human embryonic gene editing
He [Jiankui] claims to be the only person in the world who has truly genetically edited embryos and had healthy ...
Viewpoint: Brace yourself–Here is how some universities prepare students to become sex therapists
What began as a simple accommodation request in a required course called Human Sexuality turned into a case study in ...
TikTok skin care advice for kids and teens isn’t just mostly wrong, it could damage your skin
A recent trend in video-based online content features girls as young as 7 years demonstrating multistep skin care regimens, which ...
