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.
Gene therapy treatment for bowel cancer may be on the horizon
Bowel cancer’s origins can often be traced back to just a single faulty gene: APC – short for adenomatous polyposis coli ...
Mini ‘placenta-on-a-chip’ gives closer look at mysterious organ
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have created a “placenta-on-a-chip,” a miniature device that uses actual human cells to ...
Mitochondrial medicine: Pushing the limits of resuscitation
Mitochondria are the power plants of the cell. Along with understanding the role of mitochondria in causing damage to the ...
DDT found to dramatically raise breast cancer risk in women exposed while in womb
Women exposed in the womb to high levels of the pesticide DDT have a nearly fourfold increased risk of developing breast cancer, ...
How did humans first learn to use tools?
Chimpanzees and bonobos are the two closest living relatives of the human species - the ultimate tool-using ape. Yet, despite ...
More teens going through gender reassignment
It is a transgender moment. President Obama was hailed just for saying the word “transgender” in his State of the Union address this year, ...
Database of ancient human DNA opened for global public access
Medical and other researchers and science teachers around the world will be able to compare ancient DNA from humans from ...
Understanding HIV’s genetic code will help treat patients with greater precision
A virus contains its own genes, but it is able to replicate only when it gets inside the cells of ...
Regulation of mitochondrial replacement therapy needs to consider cross-generational consequences
How does one go about regulating the world’s first cross-generational biological experiment in human germline modification? The regulating body in ...
Preventing brain disease by eating brains? Science doesn’t support sensationalized reporting
Is there a genetic cure for dementia? Recent news reports of a mutation that can protect against a deadly form ...
DNA test to sell personalized skin care products: Scam or science?
What’s being billed as the future of skin care starts suspiciously like a visit to the dentist: with a mouthwash ...
Legal battle ensues with Myiad Genetics over DNA ownership rights
The High Court in Canberra has begun hearing a case pitting 69-year-old Brisbane grandmother Yvonne D'Arcy against a US biotech ...
US to end almost all research using chimpanzees
Chimpanzee research in the United States may be nearly over. On June 12, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) ...
CRISPR, yogurt bacteria reveal how microbe genomes evolve
Are there genome editing tools running around in that yogurt you’re eating? Don’t drop your spoon and start scraping your ...
Moms’ genes pass fatal flaws onto sons more than daughters
Men are doomed by their mothers - because women pass on genetic flaws which may explain why males die sooner, ...
Synthetic internal ‘clock’ could help treat obesity
Non-scientists generally think of “circadian clock” as a metaphoric term. There’s nothing literally ticking away inside the human body, helping ...
Can genetics shed light on history?
When it comes to questions of demographic change genetic insights are key, and present data in a way that allows ...
China’s spending on genetics research making huge advances in biotech
Years of pouring money into its laboratories, wooing scientists home from overseas and urging researchers to publish and patent is ...
‘Sexist’ Nobel laureate Tim Hunt’s success relied on work of women scientists
Professor Tim Hunt shocked the scientific community, and pretty much everyone else, with his outrageous comments about his “trouble with ...
New technique gives researchers closer look at epigenetics
Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a new technique to more precisely analyze bacterial ...
We need more accurate metaphors for DNA
Ask me what a genome is, and I, like many science writers, might mutter about it being the genetic blueprint ...
Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal: Debating gender and racial identity
Some in the queer community have summarily dismissed any possible similarities between Caitlyn Jenner - who recently came out as a trans ...
Researchers grow mammary gland in petri dish to study breast cancer
A research group has developed an assay whereby cultured human breast epithelial cells rebuild the three-dimensional tissue architecture of the ...
Ovary transplants could help fight infertility, but what are the risks?
For the first time, a woman who had an ovary removed as a child and part of it re-implanted as ...
Is altruism just selfishness in disguise?
Evolution proceeds by the differential reproduction of genes, so the challenge is to explain the persistence of a trait that, ...
Finding Ebola’s hiding place key to stopping another major outbreak
No one foresaw, back in December 2013, that the little boy who fell ill in a village called Méliandou, in ...
America is experiencing its worst bird flu outbreak ever: Why aren’t we more concerned?
Which epidemic has caused Americans greater anxiety: the Ebola outbreak, which began last year in Africa and has killed thousands ...
