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.
Video: Antarctica research shows how isolation changes the brain
As humans grapple with pandemic-induced isolation, science is starting to offer insight into what may be happening in our brains when ...
How the brain bends our sense of time
Time in the brain doesn't follow the steady ticking of the world's most precise clocks. Instead, it seems to fly by ...
Air pollution kills more than HIV, tuberculosis and smoking
The COVID-19 pandemic underscores more than any time in recent history how important it is to protect public health. Yet, as countries ...
A cup of coffee a day keeps colorectal cancer away
Drinking one to four or more cups of coffee a day may help people with advanced colorectal cancer live longer ...
Intricate high synergy brain regions likely explanation for complex thinking
[Researchers at the University of Cambridge are studying] a new aspect of brain organization: synergy between brain regions. Some networks ...
Video: Breaking the COVID genetic code: How genetic data revealed a secret coronavirus outbreak
The coronavirus mutates as it moves through its victims. Infectious particles swabbed from a patient’s nose carry small but distinctive differences ...
Biden vs Trump on technology
In every presidential election since 2008, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has released a report examining the two ...
Neanderthals probably were not full time cave dwellers
Genetic, chemical and geological analysis tools help teams extract as much information as they can from the bones and tools ...
Only 67% of schools teach evolution is ‘settled science’ although teaching creationism in schools is on the wane
American teachers have not always been afforded the luxury of teaching evolution forthrightly. John Thomas Scopes, for example, was famously ...
Fear and anxiety may not be as separate as we have come to believe
[It’s commonly believed that] fear is a more basal response to an immediate threat thought to be controlled by the ...
How extensively did the Vikings explore the Americas a millennium ago?
Around the year 1000, Leif Erikson set sail from Greenland and landed first in ‘Stone-slab land’, then ‘Forest land’ and ...
Male sexual desire linked to brain gene
The locus of male sexual desire has been uncovered in specific regions of brain tissue where a key gene named ...
CRISPR pioneers Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna awarded 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry
The 2020 selection for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to two scientists who share credit for identifying and developing ...
Deep waters of the Black Sea are a window into the first stages of evolution
In the deep waters of the Black Sea, scientists found microbes that can make membrane lipids, a layer that surrounds ...
Regenerative dentistry could restore damaged teeth
Teeth develop through a complex process in which soft tissue, with connective tissue, nerves and blood vessels, are bonded with ...
Where are the world’s biodiversity hotspots and why do they matter?
Ecologists have long sought to understand why some areas of the planet are extraordinarily rich in species. The research set ...
Meet the cyborg who can help decode the human brain
His motion capture suit, sensor-embedded gloves, and virtual reality eyewear were already enough to turn heads. But what stopped people ...
Can you really exercise your brain?
Who wouldn’t want a better memory? After all, our recollections are fragile and can be impaired by diseases, injuries, mental ...
Contemplating human extinction
Whether designer pathogen or malicious AI, we now recognize many ways to die. But when did people first start actually ...
Race and ADHD: Clear evidence of genetically-based racial differences in proclivity and effective treatments
[T]here may be key genetic differences in the causes of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) between African Americans and people of ...
‘We have absolutely no idea what the adverse effects of that could be’: What’s the science skinny on ‘brain boosting’ supplements
Nootropics, also called smart drugs, have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the supplement industry. They’re marketed as products that can ...
How mindfulness meditation can enhance mind control
[Researchers] conducted a large-scale human study enrolling subjects in a weekly 8-week course in simple, widely-practiced meditation techniques, to test ...
Viewpoint: There are only two sexes. That doesn’t invalidate the biological reality of transgenderism
There’s no need to reject how biologists define the sexes to defend the view that trans women are women. When ...
Have humans hit an evolutionary wall? Top scientists offer their views
Our Stone Age ancestors who were faster runners avoided being trampled by mammoths and were more likely to have children ...
‘Swallowable surgeons’: Battalion of salt-crystal sized microbots in development that could revolutionize medicine
Drs. Marc Miskin, Itai Cohen, and Paul McEuen at Cornell University spearheaded a collaboration that tackled one of the most pressing ...
Explaining the overlap in gender and sexuality in autistic individuals
In the 1990s, as growing numbers of children sought care related to their gender identity, clinicians and researchers began to ...
Epidemics helped shape the Americas. Blame Columbus and Europeans
The coronavirus pandemic has been compared with many previous contagions, including the great plague and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. However, there ...
