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.
Genetic testing can help adoptees get crucial hereditary information
According to US Census data (2000), adoptees account for more than 2.5 percent of the U.S. population (7.8 million). Worldwide, the United ...
UK’s DNA database intended to fight crime, but does it trample civil liberties?
Since 1995, the genetic information from DNA samples taken by police across the UK has been added to a database, ...
New blood test is breakthrough in ovarian cancer screening
A new blood test for ovarian cancer has been found to detect twice as many cases as conventional methods, and ...
Maple syrup may be newest ally in fight against antibiotic resistance
Maple syrup may help fight disease-causing bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant strains that often grow in healthcare settings, says a study published ...
Smith College will admit transgender women, but is it still lagging on gender issues?
Smith College announced it will admit transgender women to a school known as a bastion of female education. This is a reversal for Smith, ...
Genes may explain similarities between child prodigies and children with autism
Child prodigies may share certain genetic traits with people who have autism, new research suggests. The finding could help explain ...
Is CRISPR gene editing advanced enough to warrant human testing?
Some experts say CRISPR-edited humans could be here in 5 years, but scientists are quickly moving to self-regulate experimentation with ...
Stem cell therapy for vision loss shows promising first results
A company that has spent more than 20 years trying to develop treatments based on embryonic stem cells is taking ...
Could CRISPR’s simplicity make it difficult to regulate human embryonic gene editing?
A group of researchers shocked the world in April when they revealed that they had used a revolutionary gene editing ...
Synthetic biology needs to start small before it can solve the world’s problems
Recently, Newsweek tweeted: "Synbio was going to save the world. Now it's being used to make vanilla flavoring." Synthetic biology ...
Obesity may be causing earlier puberty in girls
For the past two decades scientists have been trying to unravel a mystery in young girls. Breast development, typical of ...
Companies may soon use employees’ genetics data in wellness programs
Your employer may one day help determine if your genes are why your jeans have become too snug. Big companies ...
Microbe ‘atlas’ shows what’s in the air you’re breathing
Advertisement. Every time you inhale, you suck in thousands of microbes. (Yes, even right then. And just then, too.) Butwhich microbes? ...
Is the difference between ‘human variation’ and ‘illness’ shrinking in the modern age?
How do we know what is pathological, versus what is normal? It seems obvious until you start thinking philosophically, which ...
DNA testing machine calls UK genetic database into question
Police forces across the UK are testing technology that allows officers to analyse DNA samples in custody suites, amid fears ...
Sofia Vergara’s ex fighting custody battle for frozen embryos
In August 2014, I filed a complaint in Santa Monica, Calif., using pseudonyms, to protect two frozen embryos I created ...
Gut bacteria easy scapegoat to explain diseases, but connections hard to prove
Blamed simultaneously for obesity, diabetes, bowel disease and even Alzheimer’s the colonies of bacteria that live in our gut get ...
Doctors save children’s lives with 3-D printed ‘airway splint’
Doctors at the University of Michigan have created the first 3-D printed device that can grow with an infant and disintegrate ...
False criminal convictions all too common due to failings of forensic science
The Washington Post revealed that in 268 trials dating back to 1972, 26 out of 28 examiners within the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison ...
Is it time to retire ‘book’ metaphor when talking about DNA?
Since its discovery, biologists have compared DNA to a book that contains the instructions for making a cell's proteins. But if ...
Rise of autism due to increase in diagnoses, not higher prevalence of disorder
Despite the increase in reported prevalence of autism spectrum disorder, there is no direct evidence that this corresponds to an ...
Stem cell therapy might help prevent brain tumors in breast cancer patients
Researchers have developed a mouse model of brain-metastatic breast cancer and found the potential of stem-cell-based therapy to eliminate metastatic ...
How modern health care stems from basic human evolutionary needs
It is now accepted that the expression of certain genes can have a significant impact on both normal and abnormal ...
How DNA testing transformed matchmaking in Orthodox Jewish community
In 1983, the wife of ultra-orthodox Brooklyn rabbi Yosef Eckstein, gave birth to their fifth child. But the couple’s happiness ...
Evolving big heads made childbirth hard on humans
In hominids, upright walking evolved 4-5 million years ago. The human pelvis was affected by these changes and evolved accordingly ...
Could drinking alcohol have prevented cholera epidemic?
When microbiologist Janet Guthrie of Inverness, Scotland found a poster from the time of the city's early-1800s cholera outbreak, urging ...
What do ants and your brain have in common?
Each of the brain’s 86 billion neurons can be connected to many thousands of others. When a neuron fires, it ...
