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.
Forensic genealogy: How new advances in DNA analysis can help solve decades-old cold cases
A new method for solving forensic genetic puzzles is ten times faster than the current method investigators use to solve ...
New treatment for binge eating disorder: Deep brain stimulation
A small study found that intercepting brain signals could limit urges for binge eating for those who struggle with binge ...
Genes play larger role in how we respond to COVID than originally thought
Getting COVID-19 can feel a little like playing roulette: It causes colds for some, but severe disease and death for ...
Want taller kids? Skip the coffee while pregnant, study suggests
Research out recently may one day complicate the standard advice given to pregnant people about drinking coffee. The study found ...
Claw-like hands, second eyelids, and 90-degree elbows? Here’s how overusing technology may affect human evolution
Claw-like hands, smaller brains, and 90-degree elbows? It sounds as ridiculous as it looks, but these researchers suggest it’s possible ...
Podcast: Humans may not be the evolutionary peak of consciousness. Here’s why
Researchers are endlessly fascinated by questions of consciousness. Ogi Ogas was a Department of Homeland Security fellow at the Department ...
‘Redesigning the immune system’: Experimental personalized medical treatment helps body defeat cancer by boosting tumor-spotting cells
People with untreatable cancers have had their immune system redesigned to attack their own tumours. The experimental study involved only ...
Why estrogen supplements may prevent early dementia and Parkinson’s in women
Oestrogen may be protective for the brain against neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and dementia, and women should not be ...
Laughing our way through the tree of life: How dopamine may have shaped early human evolution
Most historians are interested to understand the most important factor when it comes to human evolution. As debated in many ...
One of the deadliest diseases is on the rise again: Tuberculosis caused 1.6 million deaths last year alone
One of the deadliest diseases in the world is once again gaining steam. A new report this week by the ...
‘A finite pool of worry’: Why humans are unable to focus on climate change and the pandemic at the same time
It's safe to say that the first two years of the pandemic left a lot of people exhausted and emotionally ...
Age of rejuvenation: Using ‘genetic Botox’ to target wrinkles, sagging and aging skin
In my previous articles, I covered the wonderful female medical doctors working in longevity medicine, female reproductive longevity and inequality, ...
Can we prevent genetically-linked hearing loss as we get older? This expert offers tips
The biggest steps to protect your hearing are actually a series of small steps, according to audiologist Cory Portnuff, AuD, ...
How climate chaos shaped human evolution
We owe much of our understanding of the human family tree to decades of fossil finds in East Africa. But ...
This patient survived a dozen tumors. Here’s what we can learn from their unique immune system
A unique patient who has survived the development of a dozen tumors could hold the key to curing cancer, a ...
Midnight snack problem: Why does late night eating cause weight gain?
Northwestern Medicine scientists have uncovered the mechanism behind why eating late at night is linked to weight gain and diabetes ...
Video game therapy? Upbeat computer games boost ketamine’s power as an antidepressant
Computer games designed to boost self-esteem appear to prolong the antidepressant benefits of the mind-bending anesthetic ketamine. A recent study ...
Mini-brain organoids the size of pinheads help scientists decipher the impact of long COVID
In a new study published in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from Sweden and a Harvard-affiliated hospital in Boston tried to find ...
Lab-grown blood? Synthetic red blood cells last longer and help patients require fewer transfusions
For the first time, laboratory-grown red blood cells have been transfused into human recipients, potentially paving the way for groundbreaking ...
Can psilocybin — the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms — help smokers quit?
Can psychedelics help smokers quit? The National Institutes of Health wants to know the answer, and to find out, they’ve awarded ...
3D-printed organs? These self-assembling nanoparticles may help make it reality
As the human population soars and medical advances extend our lifespans, the need for organ transplants and the demand for ...
An Intimate History of Evolution: Inside the influential Huxley family’s research into natural selection
Few concepts have had as important — and vexed — a role in the relationship between science and society as ...
Only 38% of eligible kids have received COVID shots. Here’s how misinformation is keeping the numbers low
Nearly all Americans have been eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines since June, with the vast majority having gained access at ...
Treating diseases in the womb: In medical first, doctors treat Pompe disease before birth
A toddler is thriving after doctors in the U.S. and Canada used a novel technique to treat her before she ...
Cancer-fighting mushrooms? Insect-eating cordyceps fungi could help produce new antiviral and cancer drugs
Researchers grew cordyceps mushrooms on six different kinds of insects. They found that mushrooms grown amid high levels of oleic ...
‘Good’ vs ‘bad’ fat: This drug could coax our bodies into making a greater proportion of easy-to-burn fat, helping fight obesity
Obesity is a condition that can increase the risk of specific health problems, such as type 2 diabetes. There are ...
Can blue light from your phone screen damage your skin?
Blue light skin care has been entering the market as people spend more time in front of their screens. Experts ...
