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.
Sperm from skin cells have potential for male infertility treatment
Around 7.5 percent of men in the U.S. visit a fertility doctor at some point in their life, according to ...
Genes of benefit for athletic training response identified
There has long been a debate among doctors, scientists and psychologists about whether nature or nurture is more important in ...
Genetics make some people more vulnerable to repetitive brain injury
Scientists studying head injuries have found something surprising: Genes may make some people more susceptible to concussion and trauma than ...
Ancient, inert parts of our genomes may be protective
At hundreds of spots in our DNA, there are ancient swaths that have remained puzzlingly unchanged over hundreds of millions ...
Genetically modified pig lungs or lab-grown lungs: Which is the future of our organ supply?
Biotech pioneer J. Craig Venter has aligned his company with efforts to create genetically modified lungs in pigs for human ...
Stem cells can cure severe heart disease? Study suggests early reports may be oversold
A slew of positive reports showing that stem cells could be used to address severe heart disease are in question ...
400,000 people entered into ancestory genetics database
The test analyzes a person’s genome at over 700,000 marker locations and provides customers with an easy and affordable way ...
Teeth of the very old may provide more easily accessible stem cells than blood
Normally, I wouldn’t post about a report that’s already reverberated through the blogosphere, but the finding of hundreds of mutations ...
Why don’t humans grow into Goliaths?
It’s no secret that a mouse stops growing before it becomes the size of a whale. But the physiological and ...
Protein in young blood fights aging
A protein in blood can repair age-related damage in the brains and muscles of old mice, returning them to a ...
Pig heart transplants successful in baboons, offer hope for human organ shortage
The unprecedented survival of pig hearts in four baboons for almost 600 days has revived hopes that animal organs could ...
Geography trumps genes in determining lifespan
Living in the Southeast is bad for your health. There is a huge range in the death rates across American ...
Sleeping sickness treatment in focus after sequencing of tsetse fly genome
Scientists have sequenced the tsetse fly's genome, Jennifer Frazer at National Geographic reports, revealing promising targets in the fight against ...
HIV’s slow evolution in humans would not affect vaccine development
Scientists studying the evolution of HIV in North America have found evidence that the virus is slowly adapting over time ...
CRISPR gene editing commercialization divides former colleagues
The money men have moved in on a new technique for editing the human genome that promises to revolutionise the ...
Scientists create embryonic stem cell lines using adult cells, but pro-lifers still critical
Two new studies report the successful creation of embryonic stem cells using a human egg and a patient's DNA. The ...
Mother’s diet during conception may lead to epigenetic consequences and disease
A study following mothers in rural Gambia, where the rainy and dry season make for major seasonal changes in diet ...
Genetic primer course brought to you by New York Times
From junk DNA that, as it turns out, is not so junky after all, to the unique signatures in different ...
New job for IBM’s Watson: analyze cancer genetics to match patients with best available drugs
For years, the war on cancer has been about attacking specific body parts—developing treatment and funding research around lung cancer, ...
Camels carry MERS-causing virual DNA in their noses
Scientists have uncovered more evidence citing camels as the cause for the recent MERS-CoV virus outbreak sweeping across the Middle ...
Neanderthals not extinct from lack of smarts
Scientists have concluded that Neanderthals were not the primitive dimwits they are commonly portrayed to have been. The view of ...
GINA’s sixth birthday: Does legislation protecting our genetic information mean anything?
The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act nominally protects against nefarious use of genetic information by employers and health insurance companies, but it ...
Artists and biologists team up to push boundaries of synthetic biology
The Synthetic Aesthetics project argues that synthetic biology needs a healthy dose of novelty and imagination. To this end, the ...
Aging-related loss of Y chromosome reponsible for some cancers
Though overall life expectancy varies around the globe, it is true for pretty much any country you look at that ...
Bacteria poised to acquire antibiotic resistance genes at quickening pace
The post-antibiotic era is near, according to a report released today by the World Health Organization (WHO). The decreasing effectiveness ...
Humans overlook bacteria in genomic research
Decades after the genomics revolution, half of known eukaryote lineages still remain unstudied at the genomic level--with the field displaying ...
Why no treatment for mutation that causes alcohol-digesting enzyme deficiency in Asian populations?
Between the two of us, my roommate and I have the, uhh, digestive problems that are more common in people ...
