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.
Skin vision: How bizarre hogfish that ‘sees with its skin’ can help us develop robotic limbs and self-driving cars
Without a mirror, it can be hard to tell if you're blushing, or have spinach in your teeth. But one ...
Can you smell when it’s about to rain?
“We can smell different things both before, during, and after it rains,” researcher Anja Røyne says ...
Challenging the Africa human origin hypothesis: Turkish fossils suggest apes and humans may have shared earlier European ancestry
Human and ape ancestors arose in Europe: A newly described fossil suggests that the ancestor of humans and apes arose ...
Video: ‘Our brains love pictures’ — Lebanese teenage savant recites all 206 bones of the body in random order
Our brain is a super machine capable of learning the most incredible things. And with practice and repetition, you can ...
Squid thoughts: Scientists genetically-engineer glass-like cephalopod with brain that glows when it thinks
A team at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has successfully engineered an albino strain of the hummingbird bobtail squid, Euprymna ...
Traumatic brain injuries can damage short-term memory. A potential solution? It’s shocking
More than 1.5 million people in the U.S. sustain a TBI each year. Common causes include falls, motor vehicle accidents, ...
Viewpoint: With climate change boosting temperatures, we should get used to sweating
Perspiration is vital to life. It cools our bodies and hydrates our skin; it manages our microbiome and emits chemical ...
Video: Glass see-through squid with ‘demon-like’ red eyes swims in the deep waters off the coast of Alaska
The see-through cephalopod was spotted by researchers exploring the deep sea surrounding Alaska's Aleutian Islands ...
Video: This extremely rare baby giraffe was born without spots
A baby giraffe was born at Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, without any patterns! Zoo director David Bright joins TODAY ...
Why can humans speak but monkeys can’t? It may be due to this one brain quirk
Speech is unique to humans, but most of the brain structures involved in speech production are also present in Old ...
Is there such a thing as male menopause?
Experts disagree on whether a male menopause actually exists. A Norwegian professor believes that the mid-life changes affecting men and ...
Male libido: Promising early research zeroes in on brain circuitry that controls sexual interest—in mice
A single hardwired brain circuit might be responsible for male sexual drive, a new mouse study reports. Researchers have singled ...
While overall rate of cancer is going down, it’s on the rise in young Americans. Why?
Some of the biggest increases were seen in women and in younger people diagnosed with gastrointestinal and breast cancers ...
This Pink Floyd recording was made with the most complex instrument on Earth: The brain
This research aims to develop technology that lets patients who have lost the ability to speak communicate more naturally ...
BA.2.86: Current vaccines do not offer protection against new globally-spreading COVID variant
A highly mutated form of the coronavirus that threatens to be the most adept yet at slipping past the body’s ...
Viewpoint: Here’s what happens when conspiracy mongers try to rebrand themselves as “rational theorists”
Conspiracy theorists hate being called conspiracy theorists. After they try to rebrand themselves as “rational theorists,” hilarity ensues ...
Mapping the brain: 4,000+ genetic variants identified after reviewing 36,000 brain scans
The largest-ever study of brain genetics has identified over 4,000 genetic variants associated with brain structure ...
‘Disneyfication’ of science? Examining claim that trees ‘talk’ to each other
A group of researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada has now collected the results from a large number ...
Weight loss drugs like Ozempic are changing how we think about health — but we still don’t know how they work
Although the drugs seem safe, obesity medicine specialists call for caution because the obesity drugs must be taken indefinitely or ...
Video: Are we slowly being poisoned by food, drugs, chemicals and cell phones? Time for a science check up
Are we being poisoned by modern life? You’ll often hear terrifying allegations about everything from pesticide-laden food to cellphones to ...
Viewpoint: Artificial wombs remain ‘nothing more than a developmentally naïve pipe dream’
Artificial womb technology (AWT) sparked a media sensation back in 2017 and, since then, has drawn much debate ...
Viewpoint: ‘My body went haywire’ — One woman’s debilitating experience with long COVID
Despite the crystal-clear science on the damage covid-19 does to our bodies, medical settings have dropped mask requirements, so patients ...
Which is safer to smoke: Marijuana or tobacco?
Is inhaling marijuana smoke safer than inhaling smoke from tobacco? A majority of American adults say yes, according to a ...
‘Blue leg syndrome’: Yet another long COVID health problem
'Blue Legs' yet another long COVID: isolated case report that illustrates that POTS is part of the milieu of post-COVID ...
Suffering from postpartum depression? Newly-approved drug works in as few as three days
Because the pill works faster than other antidepressants and is taken for only two weeks, it may encourage more treatment ...
Convergence of AI and synthetic biology: Developing industrial goods and better medicines
The synergy of artificial intelligence (AI) and genetic engineering is ushering in a new era in biotechnology, with the potential ...
American Academy of Pediatrics says it will review evidence on safety of gender care and surgery for children, but keeps current treatment recommendations
The American Academy of Pediatrics backed gender-related treatments for children on Thursday, reaffirming its position from 2018 on a medical ...
