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.
2.5 billion: That’s how many T. rexes may have roamed the Earth over their 3-million-year reign
On average, researchers estimate that some 20,000 T. rex lived at any one time and that about 127,000 generations of ...
Does your child snore? Links found to brain changes and behavioral problems as they grow older
[R]esearchers examined MRI images collected from more than 10,000 children aged 9 to 10 years enrolled in the Adolescent Brain ...
Infographic: Gene therapy drugs that silence the effects of faulty genes could help tackle Huntington’s and other neurodegenerative diseases
Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited condition that causes widespread deterioration in the brain and disrupts thinking, behaviour, emotion and ...
Why humans evolved to be the sweatiest of the Great Apes
Humans have a uniquely high density of sweat glands embedded in their skin — 10 times the density of chimpanzees ...
Opioid vaccine could rein in addictions? Shot in development targets fentanyl, blocks drug from reaching the brain
Research is underway to develop a twice-per-year vaccine that may help people overcome opioid addiction. The vaccine, which is being ...
How our brain balances and blends past experiences with current perceptions
Our ability to make sense of our surroundings, to learn, to act and to think all depend on constant, nimble ...
Viewpoint: Why are misconceptions about transgender youth so widespread? Maybe too many people listen to misinformed pundits like FOX’s Tucker Carlson
[Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson has] repeatedly mangled and misrepresented the science on gender dysphoria and transgender youth. ... "There ...
Not only did humans exchange DNA with Neanderthals — we shared culture as well
Between ~45,000 to 40,000 years ago [humans and Neanderthals were] contemporaries and had ample time to meet and interact. New ...
Personalized medicine: ‘Race’ matters when it comes to genetic diseases and hard-wired drug responses
Although race is a social rather than biological construct, there are inherited genetic variations that play a role in drug ...
Humans are ‘super-predators’ hardwired by evolution to hunt our food sources into extinction
Humans are natural born killers: super-predators designed by evolution to subsist mainly on the meat and fat of large animals, ...
Can CRISPR gene editing help address climate change while producing lower impact biofuels?
Biofuels have long been proposed as the alternative fuel source of the future. Despite these high hopes, the commercialisation of ...
No, President Biden is not gunning to ruin your Memorial Day Weekend and ban hamburgers (as rightwing politicians and media allege)
[A]ll Republicans want to talk about right now is meat, and how Joe Biden is planning to limit you to ...
400,000 people – that’s how many die from malaria each year. Here’s how gene editing and gene drives could prevent those deaths
The estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 409,000 in 2019. There is an urgent need to find new ways ...
‘Lucy the Human Chimp’: Meet the chimpanzee raised with people and Janice, her caretaker, who tried to integrate her back into the wild
Lucy the Human Chimp, a new television documentary from HBO and Channel 4, explores... the story of one unique relationship: ...
Gender bias: When people express the same amount of pain, female patients’ experiences are viewed as less intense
In a recent study published by the Journal of Pain, co-authored by Elizabeth Losin, assistant professor of psychology and director of ...
Video: Synthetic life? Scientists have created xenobots that move, remember, heal and work together in groups
Biologists and computer scientists from Tufts University and the University of Vermont have created novel, tiny self-healing living machines from ...
Getting high on hypoxia: Ancient humans went deep into caves in search of euphoria, and depicted the experience in their paintings
As archaeologist Yafit Kedar from Tel-Aviv University in Israel was in France enjoying some cave art deep within the ground, ...
Sex differences: Stress during pregnancy affects babies’ physical and mental health — but males and females are impacted differently
In a new longitudinal study where individuals are followed over a course of 45 years, [researcher Jill] Goldstein and her ...
Challenging evolutionary dogma: Is early human history solely linked to the southern African coast rich in marine resources?
The origins of modern humans and modern human cognition are thought to lie in southern Africa, as suggested by numerous ...
Dating apps, gay sex and drug use: Syphilis running rampant after eradication appeared on the horizon
In 2000, syphilis rates were so low that public health officials believed eradication was on the horizon. But the rates ...
Podcast: Ezra Klein and Walter Isaacson discuss how CRISPR is poised to redirect the future course of evolution
When future generations look back on this moment in history, will they remember the daily political fights — or will ...
Ancient humans mated with Neanderthals as recently as 45,000 years ago
Analyses of DNA found in human fossils from around [45,000 years ago] — the oldest known human remains in Europe ...
Viewpoint: Can we reach a ’sensitive consensus’ on the personal and divisive issue of changing gender identity? Here’s an attempt
If we were going to construct a test-case for how dysfunctional our politics have become, it would be hard to ...
‘Brain glue’: A new way to help people with traumatic brain injuries
Severe traumatic brain injuries, the sort caused by life-threatening accidents or assault that can send people into comas, are very ...
How does CRISPR’s ‘on-off switch’ work? How will it revolutionize genetic research and the development of therapies?
[R]esearchers have published perhaps the greatest advance since 2013 – a way to use CRISPR as an on-off switch for ...
Jurassic Park in real life? We have the technology to create ‘super exotic novel species,’ Neuralink co-founder claims
Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak, who started the brain-computer interface company with Elon Musk, has claimed that humans have the technology ...
Is it safe to use growth hormones to treat unusually short children? Here are the pros and cons
Experts estimate that 60 percent to 80 percent of children who are short for their age do not have a ...
