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.
In the fight against opioid addiction, a new fentanyl vaccine could be an effective weapon
Can a vaccine be used to treat addiction? It sounds perplexing, but this is exactly the question the National Institutes of ...
Is there an evolutionary explanation for human’s love of music?
In a new study, researchers found universal features of songs across many cultures, suggesting that music evolved in our distant ...
Some abortion servicing doctors blocked in their states to spply their service go on the road
Kylie Cooper has seen all the ways a pregnancy can go terrifyingly, perilously wrong. She is an obstetrician who manages high-risk ...
What does Deepak Chopra believe about the dangers and benefits of AI
Deepak Chopra isn't turning his nose up at artificial intelligence ... rather, he's encouraging others to embrace the technology as the ...
CRISPR treatments offer hope for children with rare genetic disorders
Lucy Landman was born with a very rare genetic disorder that causes severe intellectual disability, weak muscles, and seizures, among ...
Can trees help solve AI’s massive power needs?
Power producer Drax is scouting locations in the American pine belt to build electricity generators fueled by burning wood chips ...
Turning the cotton industry sustainable: Using sweat potoato waste
Fabric made from waste potato plants could offer a more sustainable alternative to pure cotton, as pressure grows on the ...
Video: BBC uncovers massive fraud by Britain’s ‘social egg freezing’ clinics
Video: Women who freeze their eggs are being misled by some UK clinics about their chances of having a baby ...
Snopes: How RFK, Jr. and his Children’s Health Defense exploited the 2019 Samoan measles epidemic to promote his anti-vaccination crusade
In 2019, Samoa experienced a measles outbreak caused by low vaccination coverage. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s appointment to be President-elect ...
GLP-1 miracle elixirs? Add reducing cravings for drugs and alcohol to the already long list of health benefits linked to weight loss drugs
Some people who take drugs like Ozempic have noticed a surprising but welcome side effect: They drink less. A paper ...
The US fertility rate continues to fall sharply. Once celebrated, this trend could portend economic disaster. Here’s why
Humanity has entered a new era of rapid population decline. Globally, the total fertility rate is likely already below replacement—that ...
Wil IVF soon become a protected right under President Trump’s executive order? Sort of and maybe
President Trump signed an executive order aimed at ensuring “reliable access” to in vitro fertilization treatment — while at the ...
Risky business: How human’s evolutionary response to danger has left all of us vulnerable
In The Gambling Animal: Humanity’s evolutionary winning streak – and how we risk it all, experimental economists Glenn Harrison and Don ...
Viewpoint: Revisiting first UNESCO director Julian Huxley’s embrace of eugenics
Julian Sorell Huxley was born in London in 1887, the eldest son of Julia Arnold, an educator, and Leonard Huxley, ...
Viewpoint: Here is what Trump’s order banning federal support for transcare gets wrong about the science of gender dysphoria
President Donald Trump's executive order, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” ... promises to protect children from “destructive and ...
Musk’s brain streaming Neuralink is far from commercialization
[Neuralink] is not yet a commercial product. The current studies are small-scale—they are true experiments, explorations of how the device ...
Scientists and ethicists raise eugenic concerns about embryonic gene editing even when it could block diseases
To date, no attempts have been made to predict the consequences of altering specific variants associated with polygenic diseases. In ...
Viewpoint: ‘Broligarchs’ and the emerging age of tech authoritarianism
There’s a dominant narrative in the media about why tech billionaires are sucking up to Donald Trump: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, all ...
Running the modern IVF gauntlet—When is it time to give up?
That there are so many things that doctors can try now has made [in vitro fertilization] feel somewhat limitless. Andrea ...
‘Digital twins’: 3-D digital organs are poised to revolutionize medical treatments
“Digital twins” are the same size and shape as the real thing. They work in the same way. But they ...
Claims of living well past 100 turn out to be mostly bogus
The allure of extreme longevity has beckoned for centuries. Research careers and marketing campaigns have been built on the idea ...
Viewpoint: Courts challenge the contrived but growing relationship between trial lawyers and environmental activists
For a decade now, a brigade of climate zealots, flanked by their legal consiglieres, has been waging a shadow war ...
Sexual selection: How evolution is making men taller and larger while female growth only edges up
According to a new study, men around the world have gained height and weight twice as fast as women over ...
Longevity: Good habits or good genes?
When it comes to longevity, does it matter more whether you have “good genes” or “good habits?” While the factors ...
‘Baby Project’ scandal: Disgraced tycoon Greg Lindberg and fertility clinics embroiled in controversy
At his peak, [Greg] Lindberg controlled several insurance companies and had a net worth of more than $1 billion. Over ...
No, black newborns under the care of white doctors do not die at twice the rate of whites, as some controversial studies have attempted to claim. The difference is zero
The racial gap in infant mortality is a pressing public health concern ... [However, we] find that the magnitude of ...
Genetic diversity and evolution: How our DNA is mixed and passed down during reproduction
Scientists at deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, have created a comprehensive map of how human DNA is mixed and ...
