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.
The age of personalized medicine is upon us
Stanford's Mike Snyder Starts Living the Personalized Medicine StoryXconomySay the words “personalized medicine” to people from various walks of life, ...
Stem cells help paralyzed dog to walk again
Daily MailDogs paralysed by spine damage are able to walk again following pioneering ...Daily MailEarlier tests on paralysed rats showed ...
Bioethics group opposes mitochondrial replacement
The Christian InstituteOppose GM babies, bioethics group saysThe Christian InstituteTechniques which would create genetically modified babies should be “urgently opposed”, ...
Synthetic biology and genetics: key components of Kurzweil’s “Singularity”
Famed futurist Ray Kurzweil estimates that by 2045 we will reach the "Singularity," a point of no return where people ...
New genetic test for fetus may provide more questions than answers
The new method, called chromosomal microarray technology, is providing doctors and prospective parents with more information than ever before about ...
Telomeres linked to death risk in data from largest U.S. “biobank”
Researchers who have assembled a trove of genetic and medical data on 100,000 northern Californians unveiled their initial findings here ...
Camel genome holds information about diabetes, high blood pressure
In a paper published in Nature Communications, scientists show that camels can withstand massive blood glucose levels owing in part ...
Should we be worried about Obama’s DNA getting hacked? (Video)
An article in The Atlantic suggests hacking the President's DNA is actually a viable assassination threat. It sounds like something ...
Hacking the President’s DNA
The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, ...
Debunking the “humans are getting dumber” study
A new study published in Trends in Geneticsis suggesting that humans are slowly but surely losing their intellectual and emotional ...
Alzheimer’s tied to mutation harming immune response
In a surprising coincidence, two groups of researchers working from entirely different starting points have converged on a mutated gene ...
Brain gene separates humans from apes
An international team of researchers have discovered a new gene that helps explain how humans evolved from apes. Scientists say ...
UCSF Genetics Symposium: personalized medicine is the theme
Personalized medicine advances arising from genetic discoveries were the primary focus of wide-ranging presentations at the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics 2012 ...
What is a posthuman being?
What is a posthuman being? For years, I have been hearing that we are gradually moving towards a new state ...
DNA sequencing used to stop “superbug” outbreak in hospital
An outbreak of the hospital superbug MRSA has been brought to an end by UK doctors cracking the bacterium's genetic ...
Europeans and Asians traded DNA 2,000 years ago
Genetic blending between Europeans and Asians occurred over 2,000 years ago in the Altai region of Mongolia, according to a ...
Men’s Y chromosome isn’t “junk” — it’s an “evolutionary marvel”
The Y chromosome may have gotten a bad rap. Despite the claim that this male sex chromosome is mostly junk, ...
It’s showtime for stem cells in San Diego
San Diego research centers banded together to bring in stem cell grants, getting more than $261 million. Local leaders calculated ...
Human enhancement: Resistance is futile?
In the next few decades we may well see see technology currently used to aid the sick and disabled -- ...
Geneticist suggests human species is on an intellectual decline
Professor Gerald Crabtree, who heads a genetics laboratory at Stanford University in California, has put forward the iconoclastic idea that ...
Mutations that accelerate neural development linked to autism spectrum disorder
Neurodevelopmental disorders such as intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders are marked by mutations that impair signaling between neurons. These ...
Stem cell wins and losses in the 2012 elections
2012 was a banner year for the cause of cure. First among our stem cell electoral victories was the re-election ...
The new eugenics movement
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a piece out by Nathaniel Comfort, The Eugenic Impulse. I would just like to ...
Storing cancer data in the ‘cloud’
Storing music and photos on distant computers via "cloud" technology is nothing new. But Johns Hopkins researchers are now using ...
New paradigm for genetic counseling
In the old days (like a year or two ago) only a small portion of the patient population were thought ...
Extra chromosome 21 removed from Down syndrome cell line
University of Washington scientists have succeeded in removing the extra copy of chromosome 21 in cell cultures derived from a ...
Link between child prodigies and autism
While child prodigies have been recognized throughout history, a new study has found a possible link between those we would ...
Identical twins may not be quite so identical
Identical twins may not be so identical after all. Even though identical twins supposedly share all of their DNA, they ...
