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.
American’s know genetics relate to health, survey says
23andMe, the leading personal genetics company, is celebrating National DNA Day by taking an in-depth look at what Americans know ...
Gene therapy can restore hearing to deaf poeple
In two months' time, a group of profoundly deaf people could be able to hear again, thanks to the world's ...
Old blood, new science: 115-year-old woman’s blood suggests lifespan depends on stem cells
The blood of one of the oldest women to have lived -- and quite possibly the oldest to ever donate ...
Depressed people may produce too much of a damaging neuroprotein
Post-mortem analysis of brain tissue has shown that the dendrites that relay messages between neurons are more shrivelled in people ...
Impacts of genetic analysis and patient advocacy for extremely rare diseases
Marshall L. Summar, MD, Chief of the Division of Genetics and Metabolism at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, ...
Optogenetics: Light can control behavior when genes mediate
Dr. Karl Deisseroth is having a very early breakfast before the day gets going at the annual meeting of the ...
New indie film takes on designer babies
The most recent Pew survey released last week, US Views of Technology and the Future, is an in-depth look at ...
Genetics link inflammatory bowl disease and cancers
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), a group of chronic inflammatory disorders of the intestine that result in painful and debilitating complications, ...
Viral cloaking device hide DNA nanomedicines from immune system
It's a familiar trope in science fiction: In enemy territory, activate your cloaking device. And real-world viruses use similar tactics ...
Ignorance about genetics helps spread of common contagious disease
It’s that strange time of year when, despite springtime breaking out all over town – tulips, apple blossom, sunshine, the ...
RNAi gene silencing comes back to life
After a rocky start, RNA interference (RNAi), a gene-silencing technique that won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, ...
How do you study the evolution of intelligence: look to animals
There are many scientists who study the mental abilities of animals. As intelligent animals ourselves, we’re keen to learn whether ...
DNA “cloaking devices” sneak past the immune system, could deliver medicine and identify disease
The mammalian immune system remained an obstacle to deploying DNA nanorobots that could carry medicines through your bloodstream and to ...
Surrogacy without infertility: Is career reason enough?
Although still rare, rich women are choosing to use surrogates during pregnancy for social reasons without medical necessity ...
SAT revamp stirs IQ and genes debate, roiling egalitarian sensibilities
Are their differences among the sexes and races in IQ? Revamp of SAT test brings nature-nurture debate about human intelligence ...
Physician sees disorder for decade before genotyping can confirm genetic link
It was more than ten years ago that Dr. Tally Lerman-Sagie first saw babies with PCCA, a genetic disorder that ...
Treatment impacts of new cloning milestone
DNA extracted from the skin of a 35 and 75 year-old male has been injected into four denucleated human eggs ...
Lifestyle affects personal microbiome
Trillions of microbes live in and on our body. We don’t yet fully understand how these microbial ecosystems develop or ...
New technique speeds up gene expression analysis from hours to minutes
With gene expression analysis growing in importance for both basic researchers and medical practitioners, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and ...
Forget it Freud: Female phallus found
A Brazilian cave insect has done a most unusual sex-role reversal, a new study finds: Females have penises, and males ...
Genes play roll in pain tolerance differences between patients
Researchers may have identified key genes linked to why some people have a higher tolerance for pain than others, according ...
Marker-assisted plant breeding: agricultural genetics without GMOs
Marker-assisted selection is a fancy way of saying plant breeders are using genetics to "preview" their crops and streamline the ...
Taboo: The left’s problem with genetics of race and sex and human differences
Hard-wired differences among groups is one of the most controversial subjects in society, whether we are discussing race or sex ...
Mummy geneticist’s memoir
In the summer of 1981, a Swedish graduate student named Svante Paabo filled a laboratory at the University of Uppsala ...
Down syndrome and leukemia risk explained by genes
In science, technological advances often serve to deepen medical mysteries, as researchers peel away the next layer of the onion ...
Parkinson’s may be caused by autoimmune gene expression
The cause of neuronal death in Parkinson’s disease is still unknown, but a new study proposes that neurons may be ...
Google’s biotech company Calico poaches prominent SF geneticist
Google's mysterious health venture dedicated to extending human life has quietly lured a prominent scientist away from UCSF, The Chronicle ...
