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.
Parkinson’s disease: Nature, nurture or bad luck?
Scientists have long known that genes alone cannot explain why some people get Parkinson’s and others don’t. While a handful ...
New Mexico evolution event scuttled after attack from Intelligent Design creationists
Mexico Museum of Natural History canceled a series of events honoring scientist Charles Darwin after two local retired engineers lobbied ...
Alligators to the rescue against antibiotic resistance
Among all the animals captivating our collective attention, one of the most prevalent has been the alligator. Historical records reveal ...
Microbes, more than diet, responsible for one type of malnutrition
Malnutrition seems like an intuitive problem: you don’t eat enough food, so your health suffers. But it’s not that simple ...
Blood based cancer test shows promise in mouse studies, detecting early stage tumors
Scientists are working to create a pill that would allow doctors to diagnose cancer with a simple blood test. The ...
Sex, drugs and … vocabulary? Hedonism not only thing that rewards the brain!
For some people, learning new words activates the same machinery in the brain as sex, drugs and possibly fatty and ...
Renowned marine biologist and oceanographer Eugenie Clark dies
Eugenie Clark, whose childhood rapture with fish in a New York City aquarium led to a life of scholarly adventure ...
Could some inherited diseases be treated more effectively before birth?
Rresearch in mice suggests that treatment for haemophilia – and maybe other inherited diseases – could start in the womb, ...
Nevada lawmaker calls cancer a ‘fungus’, says it can be cured by water and baking soda
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said recently that she will propose a "Right to Try" bill in her state. But it's ...
How the AIDS epidemic came to be
The common narrative holds that the spread of HIV and AIDS among humans can be traced back to one flight ...
Dress drama: Blue and black or white and gold? What’s the science?
What color is the dress? A Tumblr user uploaded a picture of a dress, saying that they were having an ...
Software uses DNA to predict facial appearance
Mark D. Shriver, a professor of anthropology and genetics at Penn State University and his colleagues have studied the ways ...
Soybeans genetically engineered to produce anti-HIV drug
Dozens of experiments by companies and academic institutions all over the world are using techniques to insert genes in the ...
Why we crave sugar and why it’s so hard to stay away from it
In neuroscience, food is something we call a “natural reward.” In order for us to survive as a species, things ...
Why are scientists vilified when they profit from their innovations?
A critic of biotech has pointedly identified the number of companies a researcher has founded to underscore what he claims ...
Wrong kind of gut microbes could cause malnutrition
Malnutrition seems like an intuitive problem: you don’t eat enough food, so your health suffers. But it’s not that simple ...
Lab made antibody against HIV shows promise in non-human primate studies
For 30 years, researchers have struggled to determine which immune responses best foil HIV, information that has guided the design ...
Mitochondrial donation regulation crosses final legal hurdle in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom’s House of Lords has approved legislation to allow a new type of in vitro fertilization (IVF) that ...
Bionic reconstruction enables mind-controlled prosthetic hands
Bionic hands are go. Three men with serious nerve damage had their hands amputated and replaced by prosthetic ones that ...
After three-parent babies, are two-dad and two-mom babies next?
An international team of scientists have shown that it is possible to create human sperm and eggs from stem cells ...
Lesson from Ebola: Tobacco plant key to developing GMO drugs of the future
While any tobacco is harmful if smoked, there's a kind of tobacco that's being put to positive use—namely, the use ...
FTC takes aim at ‘cancer-detecting’ app featured on Dr.Oz show
It seemed too good to be true — a $4.99 cellphone app that could help you figure out if moles ...
A Facebook for sharing your genetic information?
Three years ago, biologist Bastian Greshake spit in a vial and sent it off to personal genomics company 23andMe for ...
Do people trust ‘hard’ neuroscience more than ‘soft’ psychology?
Imagine a politician from your party is in trouble for alleged misdemeanors. He’s been assessed by an expert who says ...
Online game teaches synthetic biology
On its surface, it looks like just another science puzzle game. In reality, the game is part of a broader ...
FDA approval of 23andMe’s genetic test positive sign for the genomics industry
On February 19, the Food and Drug Administration approved a test made by 23andMe, the Mountain View, Calif.-based personal genetics company, ...
Airborne form of Ebola a realistic possibility?
Back in September, when the West African Ebola outbreak was getting worse with every passing week, a lot of people ...
