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.
Fearful of a heart attack? Experimental gene editing targets cholesterol-causing genes to clear arteries
Even after decades of drug breakthroughs aimed at preventing heart attacks, they remain the world’s leading cause of death.... Verve ...
These 8 risk factors can cause Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Here’s how you can minimize them
Eight modifiable risk factors were linked to more than one in three cases of Alzheimer's disease and related dementia in ...
Are 9000 ‘forever chemicals’ used in stain-resistant fabrics, cosmetics and cookware harmful — as activists claim? Evidence is ambiguous
One of the questions I’ve been asked recently with increasing frequency is how to avoid exposure to those “forever chemicals” ...
Will global warming roil natural habitats and unleash zoonotic plagues on humankind?
The word zoonosis comes from the Greek for “animal disease.” It applies to pathogens that can jump both between critters ...
What unique characteristics of the human brain distinguish us from other animals?
The brains of human beings are different from those of every other species of animal, because all species’ brains have ...
CRISPR roaches: Gene editing shown to work in insects, opening doors for advanced pest control
Researchers have developed a CRISPR-Cas9 approach to enable gene editing in cockroaches, according to a study published by Cell Press ...
Orgasm gap: Why do women have fewer orgasms than men?
There exists a significant “orgasm gap” between heterosexual women and heterosexual men. A 2005 study found that 39% of women ...
‘A frozen backstop in case of extinction’: Conservation scientists freezing threatened species in bio-banks to prepare for the worst
"He's gone," murmurs Chester Zoo vet Gabby Drake - holding a stethoscope to the feathered chest of a 28-year-old, bright ...
Conspiracist Alex Jones spreads factless claim that monkeypox linked to COVID vaccines
Well, it was only a matter of time before someone started blaming the Covid-19 vaccines for the current ongoing monkeypox ...
CRISPR-ing the cosmetics cabinet: Making global beauty industry more sustainable
The cosmetics industry is looking for greener ingredients as consumers demand more sustainable products. According to Jon Kratochvil at ERS ...
Sexsomnia, sleepwalking and sleep terrors: 3 misunderstood disorders reveal hidden secrets of the brain
Currently, little is known about the origin or neurobiology of sleeping disorders. Recent research has revealed that sleepwalking, night terrors, ...
Infographic: Trump-voting Republican counties suffered more than twice the death rate from COVID than Democratic ones
Even with widely available vaccines and newly effective treatments, residents of counties that went heavily for Donald Trump in the ...
‘Factory reset’: Binge drinking and other anxiety-related disorders could be treated with gene editing, animal study shows
Gene editing may be a potential treatment for anxiety and alcohol use disorder in adults who were exposed to binge ...
If some dinosaurs developed advanced technology wiped out by asteroids, which species could it have been?
Very little remains from the Neanderthals, who lived just a few tens of thousands of years ago. Even very recent, ...
Viewpoint: Why we should be cautious about injectable weight loss drugs
This headline caught my attention: “Experimental Weight-Loss Drug Shows Surgery-Like Results”. This new med, tirzepatide, a once-weekly injectable, will probably ...
Beyond AI: Why artificial superintelligence is the ‘next big thing’ — and what that means for the future
When it comes to AI, there are three types: artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), artificial general intelligence (AGI), and artificial superintelligence ...
Audio: This controversial psychologist and author argues that anxiety is good for you
Anxiety is an unpleasant emotion, but can it be useful? NPR's A Martinez talks to clinical psychologist and author Tracy ...
Harvard astronomer makes case that aliens created our universe in a lab
Could our universe have been created in a petri dish? Avi Loeb seems to think so. The Harvard astronomer posits that a higher “class” ...
Brain-recording earbuds? High-tech headphones record neural data — and could unlock the mysteries of the mind
After acting as the scanner-in-chief for the company that invented the eFit, [Konstantin] Borodin is now the lead ear spelunker ...
Oxitec targeting corn crop-devastating fall armyworm moth as GMO test projects to control disease-carrying mosquitoes go smoothly in Brazil, Florida
Forget lions, hippos or venomous spiders. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes may be among the deadliest wildlife in the world. Their bite is relatively ...
Race-based medical differences: Alzheimer’s blood tests designed for white patients less accurate on blacks
Several blood tests used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease are less accurate for African Americans than white patients, according to research ...
How different is your real age from what your genes predict?
It can be said we have two ages: a fixed chronological age based on when we were born and a ...
Human brains are a lot smaller than they were 3,000 years ago – and studying ant brains may explain why
Your ancestors had bigger brains than you. Several thousand years ago, humans reached a milestone in their history – the ...
Viewpoint: How much are male-female differences grounded in genetics?
The belief that men are by nature aggressive and belligerent but protectors—like the Roman god of war, Mars—and women are ...
Precision medicine genomic testing is changing the way we treat leukemia and reducing reliance on chemotherapy
For decades, until the turn of this century, treatment strategies for leukemia changed very little. Patients received chemotherapy, often with ...
South Korean twins separated early in life suggest environment may play larger role in human differences than previously thought
Researchers have taken advantage of a rare opportunity to study identical (aka monozygotic) twins who were separated early in life, ...
Solving pollution problem? AI-designed enzyme devours plastic at industrial scale
Of the almost 400 million metric tons of plastic that the world produces every year, most ends up in landfills ...
