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.
Who owns your DNA? It’s not who you think
Recent court cases show the law favors hospitals and law enforcement rather than individuals when it comes to handing genomic ...
Venture capital firms pushing into synbio funding
Synthetic biology, which uses engineered gene sequences to create new biological systems and devices, used to be a subject for ...
European brain initiative mired in too much IT
Launched in October 2013, the Human Brain Project (HBP) was sold by charismatic neurobiologist Henry Markram as a bold new ...
Evolution created obesity epidemic? Theory of calorie-hoarding genes challenged
The obesity crisis has given prehistoric dining a stardom not known since Fred Flintstone introduced the Bronto Burger. Last year, ...
World woefully under supporting Ebola response
World, you still just don't get it. The Ebola epidemic that is raging across West Africa, killing more than half ...
How the Ebola virus has spread
If you’ve been following the fast moving Ebola outbreak in West Africa, you may wonder why containing the deadly virus ...
23andMe focuses on data portal for researchers
In less than a decade, biotech company 23andMe has turned a refrigerator full of spit into one of the largest ...
Genghis Khan and the role of power, wealth and behavior in human genetic ancestry
Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan marked 16 million males as his progeny after he conquered Eurasia with his sons and brothers ...
DNA-based stool test now available for colon cancers
Exact Sciences Corp. recently announced that Mayo Clinic will be the first health system to offer Cologuard®, the first and ...
Is “reductionism” in behavioral genetics a boon or curse?
Reductionism haunts modern genetics, but how has this approach — akin to taking apart a watch to see how it ...
UK Parliament begins discussion of “3-parent IVF”
The British government continues to move toward legalizing a form of inheritable genetic modification that would combine eggs or embryos ...
Russia’s Putin interested in cloning mammoth
Upon meeting a 28,000-year-old mammoth mummy in a museum in the Russian Far East, Russian President Vladimir Putin wondered if ...
Man Scalia mocked as murderer deserving of death penalty now exonerated by DNA
A North Carolina death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence on Tuesday was once held up by Supreme Court Justice ...
Phenol exposure during pregnancy may affect boy’s fetal growth
A research consortium has just published an epidemiological study indicating that exposure to certain phenols during pregnancy, especially parabens and ...
Human ‘angry face’ knows no cultural divide, rooted in DNA
In the U.S., the thumbs-up is typically a gesture that everything’s just hunky-dory—but in the Middle East, it implies that ...
Genetic short cuts: Horizontal gene transfer
Some plants rely on specialized bacterial backup to help them synthesize nutrients. Instead of evolving these traits over and over ...
Humans’ love for simple stories and status quo make opinions intractable in face of fact
Popular opinions about complex issues in science and technology are often held to even when facts and experts are presented ...
Spanish longevity genes linked to cholesterol metabolism
Hold the butter! The genetic secrets of centenarians are starting to be unravelled – and they hint that low cholesterol ...
After transplant, nasal cartilage acts like a knee, even down to the genes
If you need a new knee, look no further than the end of your nose. It turns out that nasal ...
Scientists create bacteria that excrete propane
Propane, the gas that fuels your barbecue (and perhaps one day your car), may soon have a new, renewable source ...
Deconstructing the polarizing debate over ‘3-parent babies’
On most issues, the public debate follows a normal distribution curve, with the majority in the 'muddled middle'. That's not ...
Tibetans’ genetic mutations help them survive at extreme altitude
When you hear the word “mutation,” you may think of something destructive, or of Marvel’s X-Men. But some mutations—which are ...
Ebola epidemic quickens
The cost of getting supplies needed to West African countries to get the Ebola crisis under control will be at ...
Gibraltar engravings may prove Neanderthals more culturally sophisticated than thought
One of the longest-running, most fervent debates in the history of human evolution research concerns the cognitive abilities of the ...
Cystic Fibrosis is a simple genetic puzzle, but finding a cure remains difficult
On the face of it, CF is a perfect candidate for gene therapy. It’s literally a textbook genetic disease – ...
Humans colonize their homes with microbes, not the other way around
Microbes are everywhere. They live on and inside us, and cover most things we come into contact with, including our ...
NIH genomics researchers to share data and clarify informed consent
Scientists who work on genomics and are funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) must post their data ...
