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.
How will approval of first copycat biotech drug impact consumer costs?
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first copy of a biotechnology drug for the U.S. market, firing the starting ...
Injury-prone? Your genes might explain why
Injury is a fact of life for most athletes, but some professionals—and some weekend warriors, for that matter—just seem more ...
Why are we good to one another?
Altruism may seem a good thing—unless you happen to be an evolutionary biologist. Then it may seem a mixture of ...
Virginia to compensate victims of 20th-century eugenic sterilization program
Lawmakers in Virginia have agreed to pay compensation to people who were forcibly sterilized between 1927 and the early 1970s ...
How much of our DNA is junk?
The human genome contains around 20,000 genes, that is, the stretches of DNA that encode proteins. But these genes account ...
Is UK’s ‘3-parent IVF’ approval up to ethical standards?
A lengthy and consequential policy process in the UK has now come to an end. Despite what could turn out ...
Whale aging hints at mysteries of menopause
A new study led by the Universities of Exeter and York has shown that female killer whales survive after menopause ...
Same sex couples may eventually have biological children
Since Shinya Yamanaka reprogrammed first mouse and then human ordinary cells into powerful pluripotent stem cells, termed induced pluripotent stem ...
Faustian bargain: Has Huntington’s disease killer mutation contributed to human IQ?
Huntington's disease is awful. It slowly robs its victims of mobility, wits and emotions. And there is no cure. The ...
Christopher Nolan, Twitter and the future of memory
Memory becomes something of a luxury when the information is easy to recall. They can find a way to do ...
Man’s best friend also our closest evolutionary ally
Dogs are humanity’s oldest friends, renowned for their loyalty and abilities to guard, hunt and chase. But modern humans may ...
Is the antibiotics miracle about to end–And to what end?
Predictions that we might sacrifice the antibiotic miracle have been around almost as long as the drugs themselves. Penicillin was ...
Genes play larger role in autism than previously thought
Autism is caused by genetic make-up in 74-98 percent of cases, a Medical Research Council study of 516 twins indicates. The King's ...
Vaginome: What’s hiding in the private’s microbial garden?
Microbes reside in virtually every human bodily system, a mix of about 10,000 different species of bacteria, fungi, and archaea ...
Do humans really carry pheromones?
The idea of human pheromones is intuitively appealing, conjuring up the idea of secret signals that make us irresistible to ...
Facebook’s AI lab designing machines that think like people
John is in the playground. Bob is in the office. Where is John? If you know the answer, you're either ...
You probably inherited more traits from Dad than Mom
We humans get one copy of each gene from mom and one from dad (ignoring those pesky sex chromosomes) – ...
Natural aptitude for math emerges early in life
Scientists have found that we may actually be born with a deep instinct for numbers. And a new study suggests ...
Genetics’ shaky history with racism contrary to what science says
As someone who writes about evolution and genetics – both of which involve the study of inheritance, and both of ...
Does sperm from teenage fathers carry more mutations?
You may have come across the story. 'Teenagers more likely to pass on genetic mutations to children,' reported The Independent ...
Antibiotics starting to backfire? Here’s one possible solution
Current antibiotics may be reaching the end of their utility. They are often kill healthy parts of out microbiome along ...
Supreme Court: Officers can seize your DNA without your consent
In 2009, a Maryland county court convicted Glenn Raynor of rape, the verdict hinging on a key piece of evidence: ...
Lost your head? Sorry, you can’t get a new one anytime soon
Last month, Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero made waves when he announced he’d discovered the key to performing a totally crazy surgery: ...
Why we shouldn’t think of genes as language
When we talk about genes, we often use expressions inherited from a few influential geneticists and evolutionary biologists, including Francis ...
DeepMind: Computer games manna for creating Artificial Intelligence
DeepMind, the Google-owned artificial-intelligence company, has revealed how it created a single computer algorithm that can learn how to play ...
Vitamin and mineral supplements: Miracle potions, silent dangers or both?
The multi-billion dollar vitamin and supplement industries are largely unregulated, in part because of the endorsement of one of the ...
Bionic hand controlled by thought restores movement to paralyzed limbs
Milo Marinkovic used to find it difficult to put toothpaste on his brush. He couldn’t tie his shoelaces and couldn’t ...
