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.
New York’s Cardinal Joseph O’Connor was born to Jewish mother, daughter of a rabbi
In his 16 years as the Catholic Church’s top official in New York, Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor was a staunch ...
Humans think of themselves as special but we’re just another animal
Even though you are reading this on a sophisticated electronic device, you are an animal. That's the most radical idea ...
GM mosquito breakthrough: Make them all males
Scientists have hailed the genetic modification of mosquitoes that could crash the insect’s populations as a “quantum leap” that will ...
MERS papers are duplicates, point to dysfunction is Saudi scientific community
A great story can be told again and again. But scientists working on the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) ...
Can GMO crops help fight global warming?
In the fight against global warming, our planet's ability to reflect light and heat is dropping. In a warming world, ...
Genes of best sleepers might offer clues for many diseases
In a lab at the University of California, San Francisco, a husband-and-wife team is working to unravel the secrets of ...
BRCA1&2 negative women also seeking double mastectomy at increasing rates
Kathryn Edwards always thought that if she were ever diagnosed with breast cancer, "I'm taking them both." So when her ...
Does our anthropocentric view of genetics keep us from scientific discovery?
We often attribute disease causing agency to microbes. But any human heath effects they have were discovered haphazardly through evolution ...
Google will be home for 10,000 genomes for autism research
Google Inc. and Autism Speaks, a major autism research foundation, plan to announce on Tuesday a deal in which the ...
Human fetal biology is much more complex than the personhood movement is equipped to handle
What if at the very beginning stages of development you absorbed your twin’s cells? You’d be twins—a phenomenon called a ...
Chromosome ‘telomeres’ that protect human health can also lead to deadly brain cancer
Telomeres are to chromosomes what plastic caps are to the ends of shoelaces - they stop them unravelling as they ...
Genes controling eye color also affect pain perception
They're often referred to as the windows to the soul, but now it's been claimed your eyes can actually reveal ...
Corals and humans evolved complex mechanisms for necessary cell death
For us to live, parts of us must die. Every day, billions of our cells shrink, break up into small ...
Insect species help foresnic scientists
In a thick wooded area, a dead body lies. Within 5 to 10 minutes, a slew of tiny winged visitors ...
Couple with history of obesity arrested because of son’s weight
A couple in the United Kingdom has been arrested for neglect and child cruelty for letting their 11-year-old son become ...
Evolution made modern human females thinner than ancestors
Modern day women have slim hips and narrower waists thanks to evolution - not calorie couting. Scientists made the discovery ...
Genetic and enviromental factors controling obesity epidemic are far from being decoded
A number of recent articles by scientists involved in research on obesity make a pointed case that, in spite of ...
CRISPR editing might stop HIV
Take a hot new method that's opened up a new era of genetic engineering, apply it to the wonder stem ...
Knowledge of evolution gains ground among public
Since Gallup started polling Americans about the origins of man in 1982, creationists have stayed pretty faithful to their views ...
Nanoparticles in sunscreen get bad rap, but evidence they cause human harm is slim
Most consumer sunscreens use nanoparticles to keep products effective and transparent. But some call the safety of this micro technology ...
8,000 year old mitochondrial DNA provides insight about first human farmers
The mitochondrial DNA of the first Near Eastern farmers has been sequenced for the first time. In the research, published ...
‘Buttressed against punches’: Did human face evolve to protect against fights?
Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures. For many ...
Further advancement for MS stem cell treatments
There is more good news from leading stem cell biotech Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) on preclinical rodent studies using stem ...
FDA likely to approve new recombinant hemophilia drug
A recombinant fusion drug combining the Factor VIII protein with an FC antibody peptide to extend its lifetime in circulation ...
Botched poll encourages view that personal genomic testing could be dangerous
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News have just published the first survey conducted by their Science Advisory Board, a project called ...
U.S. Brain Initiative budget will rival that of Human Genome Project
The National Institutes of Health set an ambitious $4.5 billion price tag on its part of President Obama’s Brain Initiative ...
Has the war on synthetic biology already begun?
Scientists are worried that synthetic biology might succumb to the same vitriolic culture war that has slowed innovation of genetic ...
