Daily Human Digest
‘There is no sound I don’t like’ — In gene editing breakthrough, Lilly’s 30-day gene therapy restores hearing of 11-year old boy, with more deafness treatments on the way
The genetic treatment targeted a particular kind of congenital deafness and will soon be tried in children who are younger ...
‘Overly sanitized’ environments? Unraveling why diseases tied to chronic inflammation are spiking in the developed world
Research suggests that people raised in developed countries tend to have higher levels of chronic inflammation than those in developed ...
Viewpoint: Hard-wired gender — Don’t believe claims that there are almost no differences between male and female brains
Men’s and women’s brains are biased to notice and process different aspects of the social and physical world ...
Political psychology: Democrats and Republicans exist on polarized extremes
The United States, though politically fractious since its founding, is more polarized than ever, the rhetoric more inflammatory, the rage ...
UK scientists support loosening restrictions limiting embryo research
Scientists are calling for a review of the UK's 14-day rule on embryo research, saying that extending the limit could help ...
In wake of 23andMe DNA data breach, privacy concerns reemerge
A new data breach is highlighting the risks of having your ancestry information stored online — and what it might ...
Viewpoint: An increasing number of Americans are rejecting vaccinations, and dying as a result of it. Can we reverse the trend?
Despite vaccines saving lives and improving population health, an increasing number of people are declining vaccinations ...
AI tools are already supercharging online harassment and hate campaigns. Can they be stopped?
A glimpse at how nefarious internet users could employ sophisticated AI tools to supercharge online harassment and hate campaigns ...
Whether you use Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro or Zepbound, you’re going to hit a weight-loss plateau. Then what?
Everyone hits a weight-loss plateau, but the race is on for next-generation drugs that can help patients lose even more ...
Unraveling the mystery of why cancer is soaring among people under 50
Researchers are trying to figure out what is making more young adults sick, and how to identify those at high ...
Viewpoint: COVID vaccine rights waiver would allow developing countries access to formulas and manufacturing details, jeopardizing America’s biotech race with China
With support from the U.S, the World Trade Organization in 2022 waived global intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines — ...
Culture, art and war: 15 biggest discoveries in 2023 that changed our understanding of human evolution
2023 could likely be viewed as a coming-of-age story for our Neanderthal cousins, as they further shed their brutish image ...
‘No other drug has ever alleviated symptoms of traumatic brain injury’: Psychoactive ibogaine reduces PTSD, anxiety and depression in veterans
Researchers have discovered that the plant-based psychoactive drug ibogaine can safely and effectively reduces PTSD, anxiety and depression ...
3 billion years ago, a rock four times the size of Mount Everest hit Earth. Here’s how this kickstarted evolution
When Earth first formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, lava lakes sizzled under a thick greenhouse atmosphere during the Hadean ...
Here are the most important Artificial Intelligence innovations to track in 2024
AI’s problems will shape the agenda for researchers, regulators, and the public, not just in 2024 but for years to ...
$3 million barrier to sickle cell gene therapy: How prohibitive costs could limit practical benefits of newly-approved drugs
In a much-anticipated move, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has approved two new gene therapies for sickle cell disease ...
Here’s how and why early humans created our world of mostly dark-eyed dogs
Researchers suggest that human preferences for a friendly face may have steered the evolution of canine eye colour ...
Viewpoint: ‘Artificial intelligence poses a whole new threat to the already dangerous practice of heritable human genetic modification’
Artificial intelligence poses a whole new threat to the already dangerous practice of heritable human genetic modification ...
‘When you’re starving, hunger is like a demon’: Scientists finally grasping how hunger commandeers the brain
More than 1.9 billion adults worldwide are overweight and more than 650 million are obese, a condition correlated with a ...
‘Warning written in wood’: 200-year-old tree reveals silent climate distress signal sent by one of Earth’s longest-living organisms
Cutting-edge techniques are allowing researchers to observe how the rings from long-lived trees form in real time ...
Podcast: Inside global race to create first artificial eggs and sperm, enabling people of any age or sex to have genetically-related children
Get a glimpse into the global race to create the first artificial human embryos to see how the competition is ...
$2,500 whole genome sequencing per embryo: Tech startup claims to screen potential children for 1,200 genetic disorders, but experts not sure it’s worth the cost
Reproductive tech startup Orchid is now offering whole genome sequencing for embryos, giving prospective parents and their doctors information that ...
Maybe Vitamin D isn’t such the ‘miracle supplement as the hype—and many scientists—have long claimed
For a while vitamin D was looking like a bona fide health elixir. It was recognized a century ago as ...
Podcast: ‘Intelligence explosion’ — Deep space is too far away for humans to explore, but AI may offer a work-around by uploading our brains into the cloud
Futuristic objectives that are at the centre of the AI industry’s quest for superintelligence and hear about the Extropians, ...
Close cousins: Just 400,000 years ago, modern humans and Neanderthal lineages split, 100,000 years more recently than previous estimates
More evidence suggests that our species may have diverged from Neanderthals just 408,000 years ago, which is later than previous ...
The future creeps closer: While two-thirds of Americans say they’d pick an embryo based on genetic profiling, some concerns escalate
Nearly one third of those surveyed even say they would consider going through IVF for the sole purpose of such ...
Love on the brain: Here’s the science behind how relationships make us ‘weak in the knees’
Researchers have measured how a part of the brain is responsible for putting our loved one on a pedestal in ...