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.
These 4 new techniques are spearheading future of fertility treatments
Here are four of the new reproductive treatments that scientists say could be just a few years away from the ...
Q&A on the future of versatile mRNA-based vaccine development
Robert Langer, ScD, is the David H. Koch Institute professor at MIT and a co-founder of Moderna, the pharmaceutical company ...
Circadian rhythm: How do our sleeping cycles affect how we experience pain?
In a recently published study, scientists led by Claude Gronfier at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre in France have finally shed ...
New reversible gene-editing technique may be safer and more reliable than standard CRISPR
Chinese researchers say they have developed a new gene-editing tool that is more efficient and safer because it does not ...
Physician responsibility: Why are many terminal cancer patients not told they are dying?
Unrealistic expectations fueled by direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising depicting happy cancer survivors and the pharma industry’s influence on oncologists hang over ...
Patterns in the sand: We can sometimes predict how evolution will unfold
In a new paper published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, an international group of researchers demonstrated that a ...
Moonshot genomics: How CRISPR is opening the door to reshaping life itself
It’s a moonshot idea. If the genome is a book, gene editing is like copy editing—changing a typo here and ...
Fever dreams are part of our shared human experience, but elude scientific explanation
The COVID-19 pandemic had a documented effect on people’s dreams — even in those who didn’t contract the infection. But ...
Are you a mosquito magnet? Science explains why
Mosquitoes are very sensitive to CO2 and can sense a CO2 source that is many meters away. Receptor cells on ...
Ancient DNA: Here’s how a thousand-year-old skeleton was diagnosed with a genetic disorder
The oldest clinical case of Klinefelter Syndrome has been detected in a 1,000-year-old Portuguese skeleton. Klinefelter Syndrome is a super ...
Novel gene therapy study offers hope for definitive colorblindness cure
Researchers from the University College London (UCL) used gene therapy to partly restore the function of the retina's cone receptors ...
Do sex and romance drive our artistic and athletic abilities?
In his theorizing on the evolution of species, Darwin showed that, in addition to natural selection, animals have “ornaments” used ...
Martian space travel is moving from science fiction to fact. How will humans adjust when they set foot on the red planet?
In the coming decade, in 2033, NASA and China intend to send astronauts to Mars for the first time in ...
Are you a mosquito magnet? Blame it on the insect’s unique sense of smell — and your unique odor
If you’ve ever sprayed yourself head to toe in bug repellent, yet still felt like a mosquito magnet, it will ...
Beyond brain fog: COVID infection linked to variety of neurological diseases, including epilepsy, dementia, psychosis
People who got COVID have a higher risk of developing brain disorders such as dementia, psychosis, and brain fog two ...
The tipping point for millions of heart attacks is one single gram of salt per day
Looking at health data on adults in China, the study authors estimate that a reduction of just 1 gram in ...
‘Electronic skin’ wirelessly transmits data about a person’s blood pressure, heart rate, and activity levels
Most wireless sensors today communicate via embedded Bluetooth chips that are themselves powered by small batteries. But these conventional chips ...
Investing in genomic research can boost poor countries’ access to rich science
Africa holds genetic diversity unrivaled for any population in the world but it is on the back foot in benefitting from ...
Can exercise reduce dementia risk?
Experts had long believed that exercise could help protect against developing dementia. However, though they had observed a general pattern ...
‘Superspreader’: New York Times documentary investigates natural products peddler and vaccine rejectionist Dr. Joseph Mercola
Sarah Long credits the information she found on Mercola.com with potentially saving her life. For years, she had health issues ...
DNA solves medieval death mystery: 17 Ashkenazi Jewish people found in well after anti-Semitic crusade
The identity of the remains of the six adults and 11 children and why they ended up in the medieval ...
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD): Background on the first personalized CRISPR therapy approved for trial
The FDA has given the greenlight to test the first personalized CRISPR therapy, which was developed specifically to treat one ...
Ancient toys found in archaeological digs are changing perspectives on children in early civilizations
Over the two decades that archaeologist Gus Van Beek excavated Tell Jemmeh, an Assyrian settlement inhabited from around 3,800 to ...
Children of parents who live to be over 100 years old inherit survival advantages
Children of centenarians have a unique genetic profile that may account for why they are less frail than children of ...
How chewing may have shaped human evolution
About 10% of the calories consumed over the course of the day are expended on digesting, absorbing, metabolizing, and eliminating ...
Worm world: Are there more parasites now than ever?
"Is the world wormier than it used to be?" Chelsea Wood, an Associate Professor in the School of Aquatic and ...
Viewpoint: ‘Who gets to decide what causes harm?’ Why Nature’s new editorial guidelines are problematic
This new article in Nature Human Behavior Is well-intentioned, aiming to purge bigotry from science, but goes way over the ...
