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.
Genes may have helped Russians survive WWII siege
In September 1941, German troops and Finnish allies encircled Leningrad, trapping 3 million residents in the Baltic city famed for ...
Who’s your (ancestral) daddy? Family tree genetics might link everyone to King David
Companies claiming to pinpoint your ancestral village of origin or relationship with famous historical figures are likely telling you the ...
Creativity and mental illness share genetic markers
The notion of the tortured artist is a stubborn meme. Creativity, it states, is fuelled by the demons that artists ...
Swiss gay couple faces legal battle over child born through surrogacy agreement
On May 21, 2015 the Swiss Federal Court refused to register a male couple - who are in a civil ...
‘Graph’ of human genome will reflect every possible combination of genes
The Human Genome Project was one of mankind’s greatest triumphs. But the official gene map that resulted in 2003, known ...
DNA analysis confirms schizophrenia has genetic roots
A paper published in Nature marks the culmination of a long debate about the genetic basis of a disorder sometimes considered psychiatry's heartland — schizophrenia. No ...
Are you smarter than a Neanderthal?
Neanderthals have really struggled to shake the view of being rather dim-witted, grunting brutes since they were first described back ...
Will new gene editing technologies kindle eugenic aspirations?
While the process of synthesizing and arranging genetic code has many processes, perhaps none has been as promising as the ...
New findings appear to bridge gap in origin of first life on Earth
How did life on Earth begin? It's been one of modern biology's greatest mysteries: How did the chemical soup that ...
Head transplants? Have scientists lost their minds?
Here’s something that will make your head spin: A Chinese doctor has been surgically transplanting the heads of mice—and he ...
DNA, the ‘devious defecator’ and the right to genetic privacy
A poop paternity test may set legal precedents on privacy in the workplace ...
Is FDA-backed ‘Viagra’ for women a step towards gender equality in medicine?
After an intense lobbying campaign, a federal advisory panel recommended approval of what would become the first drug to treat ...
Glowing bacteria detect diabetes, cancer in patients’ urine
A Stanford-designed project has built a startling new tool for diagnostic medicine: living biosensors made of bacteria that glow a ...
‘Healthy’ study volunteers found to harbor surprising genetic mutations
A few years ago, a team at the National Institutes of Health set out to study healthy people's DNA. They ...
Triceratops’s newly discovered cousin displays unique evolutionary history
They call him “Hellboy,” and it’s easy to see why. Had you been there when it lived 68 million years ...
GM mosquitoes that could reduce illness in Florida Keys face public opposition
A U.K.-based company, Oxitec, has altered two genes in the Aedes aegypti mosquito so that when modified males breed with wild females, the ...
New genetic test unveils history of viral infections
US researchers claim to have developed a single test that is able to identify past exposure to every known human ...
Genetics, social trends lead moms to delay having children
Women are starting families later in life despite an apparently stronger genetic drive to have children when they are younger, ...
National academies move to design regulations on germline editing
The National Academies of Science (NAS) and National Academies of Medicine (NAM) have their work cut out for them as ...
Are concerns over danger of CRISPR eclipsing potential benefits?
CRISPR is causing a major upheaval in biomedical research. Unlike other gene-editing methods, it is cheap, quick and easy to ...
White House tackles antibiotic resistance at first ever summit
Representatives of more than 150 health care organizations, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies federal health agencies and food-production interests met at ...
De-extinction aspirations walk line between noble and selfish
The conceit of Beth Shapiro's disturbing and thoughtful new book, How to Clone a Mammoth, is that it is a ...
Can emeging field of optogenetics transform how scientists study brain and mental health?
For much of the history of brain research, it has been nearly impossible to accurately test ideas about how the ...
‘My genes made me do it: An excuse for infidelity that your spouse shouldn’t believe
Media have a tendency to hype studies that link individual genes to behavioral effects. Recent news surrounding connections between the ...
Human germline gene editing too complex for black-and-white moral framing
The first day of BEINGS2015, “A Gathering of Global Thought Leaders to Reach Consensus on the Direction of Biotechnology for the ...
Assisted reproduction technologies can’t delay adulthood
All too frequently, I am faced with breaking bad news to disappointed couples in their early 40s who expected IVF ...
Where has Big Genomics taken us, and what will the future hold?
Below are some thoughts about David Dobbs's recent piece and ‘Big Genomics'; this should not be construed as a ‘response': ...
