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.
Angelina Jolie: ‘Why I’m getting my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed’
Two years ago I wrote about my choice to have a preventive double mastectomy. A simple blood test had revealed that I carried ...
23andMe on The Dress: Genes don’t settle debate, but age might
In the latest twist in #TheDress, a survey by DNA-testing company 23andMe suggests that genes don’t play an obvious role ...
Great Britain’s gene pool reflects migrants, rather than tribes
Some years ago I went to see a medieval farmhouse in north Devon. The owner was a hostile character with ...
Egg-freezing rhetoric poses major ideological struggle for American women
Facebook and Apple’s offer to cover the costs of egg freezing for their employees has made a large range of headlines. “Not ...
Can human germline genetic modification research proceed with ethics in mind?
I have been following the reports about genetic editing technology with concern. The fact that some scientists are calling for ...
Life on Mars? Will we find it? Will we colonize the Red Planet?
Discovery of Martian life could provide us unprecedented insight into life's origins, and maybe help us understand how we can ...
Human complexity lies at intersection of genetics and brain
A wealth of empirical evidence is accumulating on the genetic mediation of brain structure phenotypes. This comes from twin studies ...
Doomed mammoth-cloning attempt foiled by cosmic rays
Hwang Woo-Suk is the bad boy of genetics. He’s most famous for falsely claiming to have cloned human stem cells ...
Autism: No, it’s not caused by glyphosate or circumcision, but is likely in our genes
Vaccines, glyphosate herbicide, chemtrails and even circumcision have been blamed for the increase in autism cases over the years. But ...
‘Great Indoors’: Your home is a jungle of tiny animal lodgers
When humans began building shelters about 20,000 years ago, we unrolled a welcome mat for other species. Over the past ...
Are human beings GMOs?
Opponents of genetically modified crops often complain that moving genes between species is unnatural. Leaving aside the fact that the ...
Alzheimer’s drug slows cognitive decline, set for further trials
The search for an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has been riddled with failures, but a promising new drug could ...
We need to rethink how we think about death
There’s an ugliness to death that Paul Bennett - chief creative officer at Ideo, the global design firm that’s renowned for its ...
Why do we need sleep?
If you’re lucky, you’ll spend a third of your life asleep. “That’s pretty incredible if you think about it, because when we’re ...
Scientist’s quest to prove genes ‘jump’ forever shook up genetics
For much of the 20th century, genes were considered to be stable entities arranged in an orderly linear pattern on ...
Why do so many Americans fear Ebola, but reject vaccines?
Sitting and talking about the 10,000 people so-far killed by Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa, it's easy to feel ...
Genghis Khan’s Legacy: Male Y chromosome tells tale of genetic and cultural evolution
I do like to suggest that the genetic and archaeological record support the conjecture of Conan the Barbarian in terms ...
Should biologists keep invasive CRISPR mutations in check?
On 28 December 2014, Valentino Gantz and Ethan Bier checked on the fruit flies that had just hatched in their ...
US ‘Wild West’ of fertility industry
The Utah Legislature has taken a step into territory where state lawmakers rarely tread. It passed a law giving children conceived ...
Egg donation companies commodify women through ad campaigns
This ad appeared as a “suggested post” on a law student’s Facebook News Feed page. Sponsored by A Perfect Match, ...
Genetics of why listening to music feels so good
That song you can't get out of your head might be doing something more than prompting you to hum the ...
Have a rare disease? Fund your own clinical trial
With research funding cuts on the rise and clinical trial spots running short, people are finding new ways to support ...
Is free will an illusion? Genes may determine more than you think
Whenever you read stories about identical twins separated at birth, they tend to follow the template set by the most ...
Brain too clever to be fooled by virtual reality
The faceputer ads say virtual reality is coming and it's gonna work this time. But here's some real talk: There ...
Vikings once ruled Britain, but Anglo-Saxons still reign over genome
They came, they saw, they conquered. But while the Romans, Vikings and Normans ruled Britain for many years, none left ...
DNA testing fetus leads moms to their own cancer diagnoses
Moms undergoing genetic testing for fetal health sometimes learn they have cancer. Advances in fetal DNA testing are paving the ...
Aspirin may protect some against colorectal cancer
The link between taking aspirin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, and colorectal cancer prevention is well established, but the mechanisms ...
