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.
Word’s first AI sex toy has roots in practices of the earliest humans: ‘This is not your normal masturbation’
[A] man from Madrid who is trying out a male sex toy for the first time. He took the latest ...
Can Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight loss drugs make you suicidal
Is it even biologically plausible that Ozempic could lead to suicide? I think it is, actually. First off, we know ...
Shattered stereotypes: Half of people over 70 stay cognitively sharp
“The belief about old people is that they’re all kind of the same, they’re doddering, and that aging is this ...
5% of the population claim near-death experiences: Psychedelics may be a way to understand what happens in our brain
One person felt a sensation of “slowly floating into the air” as images flashed around. Another recalled “the most profound ...
Free will and the brain: Challenges to long-standing belief that that addiction is a disease
For decades, medical science has classified addiction as a chronic brain disease, but the concept has always been something of ...
The fossils that evolution forgot: Lungfish DNA 30-times bigger than ours
We already knew that the genomes of lungfish are huge, but how gigantic they really are and what can be ...
Gene editing babies: For a few hundred dollars in chemicals, you could install these changes in an embryo in ten minutes
If anyone did create an edited baby, it would raise moral and ethical issues, among the profoundest of which, [Jennifer ...
Robots enabled to detect human touch in a new way — mimicking pressure on your knuckles
Even the most capable robots aren’t great at sensing human touch; you typically need a computer science degree or at ...
‘We live at a time where cultural evolution can be very, very, very rapid, but our biological evolution seems relatively stunted.’
In modern times, our lives have changed tremendously by gaining control over nature. The advent of vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, and ...
‘Million dollar question’: Can advancements in ‘AI science’ create ‘AI scientists’
As amazing as today’s AI programs can be, they are limited by their need to consume human-generated training data. If ...
Anatomically modern humans may not have originated in Africa’s Rift Valley
The story of our species begins in Africa, although our ability to tell that story is based on patchy evidence ...
Sexual sensation: How the brain manages sensuality
Sexual sensation is absolutely central to both our shared human experience and our individual quirks and kinks. It’s exactly the ...
How genetically-engineered black flies could help tackle global environmental challenges
In the battle against pollution, a team from Macquarie University is turning to an unexpected ally: genetically engineered black soldier ...
Europe’s bioindustry 4.0: ‘The upside of biotechnology is that it can offer a cleaner alternative to traditional chemical manufacturing’
Biotechnology, which uses living organisms to create different products or processes, remains important in today’s production of food and drink ...
50,000 brain scans: AI has discovered five patterns of brain atrophy, providing insights into the mystery of aging
An analysis of almost 50,000 brain scans has revealed five distinct patterns of brain atrophy associated with ageing and neurodegenerative ...
High intelligence, athletic, calm disposition? Designer babies are enticingly near but red flags abound
Genetic screening has rapidly evolved, offering insights into an embryo’s genetic makeup that were once unimaginable. Prospective parents can now ...
Viewpoint: AI is paving the path for dehumanizing medicine
AI promises to make healthcare quicker, more precise, and error-free. To the degree that it replaces doctors and nurses, it ...
Cloudy with a chance of AI? How weather forecasters are more accurately predicting tropical storms
In May, Microsoft released a forecast tool called Aurora that produces five-day global air- pollution predictions and 10-day weather forecasts ...
From Sitting Bull to Beethoven: Scientists are using DNA to create geneaological maps for people with murky histories
In the decade or so since scientists reported the first ancient human genome sequence, they have generated genome data for ...
Viewpoint: Polygenic screening allows parents to ‘choose the very best children’ — Ethical questions abound
Emerging technology is about to present parents with a set of ethical questions that make the usual kinds of debates ...
80 per cent of the world’s population uses some folk medicine. Here’s why magical thinking will never go away
At one point or another, we all knew something about how to heal ourselves using the plants and animals that ...
‘Addictively dependent’ on an AI girlfriend? Scientists and ethicists fear artificial intelligence may undermine human romantic connections
AI companionship is no longer theoretical—our analysis of a million ChatGPT interaction logs reveals that the second most popular use of ...
Unearthing the Shire? 3-foot tall Hobbit-sized human ancestor bone found in Indonesia
The remains of a member of the smallest ancient human species on record, who stood at just 1m tall, have ...
‘My life was full of people telling me you can’t do this’: First sickle cell CRISPR gene therapy already rescuing lives
“My life was constantly full of ‘noes’, and people telling me ‘you can’t do this’ – it was limitation after ...
We know moms shouldn’t drink while pregnant. Now there’s evidence that drinking dads can damage children’s brain development too
For more than 50 years, scientists have warned about the risks of drinking alcohol in pregnancy. Recent research has found that ...
‘Digital psychological twins’: AI copy of a dying family member’s consciousness could help make end-of-life decisions. Is this ethical?
End-of-life decisions can be extremely upsetting for surrogates, the people who have to make those calls on behalf of another ...
The Atlantic ocean might collapse from climate change. How long do we have to find a solution?
A gigantic, weather-defining current system could be headed to collapse. How much time might we have left to save it? ...
