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.
Why do we dream?
Here's [David] Eagleman and [Don] Vaughn's theory in nutshell: The role of dreams is to ensure that the brain's visual ...
Climate change and urbanization blamed for sharp increase in human-biting disease-carrying mosquitoes
[Aedes aegypti] is responsible for spreading Zika, dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya in various regions around the world. Although A. aegypti currently ...
Why do some children who eat enough calories still end up stunted?
Even when given enough to eat, [malnourished children] end up shorter than their peers and are saddled with cognitive deficits, ...
Origins of life: We are getting closer to recreating the bubbling primordial soup
At 158 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius), the vents are a bit hot for a bubble bath but, it turns ...
Sense of self: How the brain distinguishes ‘us’ from the world
We are highly sensitive to people around us. As infants, we observe our parents and teachers, and from them we ...
Coronavirus highlights why the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act is ripe for overhaul
[Palantir] has been hired and has assigned 45 staff to a project “designed to predict surges in NHS demand during the ...
When it comes to medicine, how we define slippery concepts like race, gender and age matters
The foundation of medical research, which is considered the gold standard, is the Randomized Controlled Trial when individuals are matched ...
Indigenous people remained in southeastern US for nearly 150 years, study shows
While [expeditions by Spanish explorers] unquestionably resulted in the deaths of countless Indigenous people and the relocation of remaining tribes, ...
CDC: US could prevent top-thirds of maternal deaths
[A] report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [says] the United States could prevent two-thirds of maternal deaths ...
World War II Jewish Warsaw ghetto in provides blueprint for how US might contain coronavirus
A paper published on [July 24] in Science Advances reports on a sophisticated mathematical analysis that shows how personal hygiene, quarantines, social distancing and ...
How do antidepressants work? We still don’t know
[A]bout a third of Americans are showing signs of depression or anxiety, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s about ...
How the Hobbit films illustrate the way human brains evolved
For Northwestern University neuroscientist and engineer Malcolm MacIver, [a scene from the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey where Gandalf and Bilbo ...
Podcast: How male sex drive evolved
For decades, scientists suggested that fatherhood fulfilled a primarily evolutionary function: protecting and providing for offspring in return for sex ...
DNA of the slave trade: American Blacks’ genetic links to Africa
[A] paper by 23andMe researchers leveraged genetic data from close to 50,000 people to detail one of the most comprehensive ...
Maybe Darwin got it wrong: ‘Survival of the Friendliest’
Most people assume that Darwin was talking about physical strength when referring to “survival of the fittest,” meaning that a ...
Having your period can be painful, messy, expensive – and optional?
Menstruation has now become an elective bodily process. “Once your periods are established, we can turn them off,” Sophia Yen, ...
Omega 3s in high doses shown effective in slowing Alzheimer’s in small study
[T]o date the majority of studies evaluating omega-3s for averting or curtailing cognitive decline in human participants have failed to ...
Pangalactic intelligence: Here’s a guess about how many aliens in the universe
[I]n excess of four billion years ago, practically as soon as our planet had sufficiently cooled from its fiery formation, ...
Number instinct: Numerical ability is deeply rooted in our shared animal evolution
Considering the multitude of situations in which we humans use numerical information, life without numbers is inconceivable. But what was ...
Universal treatment for rare diseases? Cure for sickle cell, immune deficiencies created from umbilical cord blood
[I]nfusing umbilical cord blood — a readily available source of stem cells — safely and effectively treated 44 children born ...
What’s happening to viruses, bacteria and mites that exist in our socially-isolated home islands?
We may feel isolated now, in our homes, or apart in parks, or behind plexiglass shields in stores. But we are ...
Millennials vulnerable to spikes in numerous diseases led by colorectal cancer
The rates of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are up 14% among commercially-insured adults ages 22-37, according to a Blue Cross ...
Stream music directly to your brain? Elon Musk’s new Neuralink gadget
[Elon] Musk confirmed that Neuralink’s technology would allow people to “listen to music directly from our chips.” He also said ...
Greta could be the first wooly mammoth-elephant hybrid—and the loneliest animal in the world
The room is bright and her bath is warm. A clamp slides over her sides. She squeals as it hoists ...
Infographic: Power of evolution? How oak trees came to dominate North American forests
Over the course of some 56 million years, oaks, which all belong to the genus Quercus, evolved from a single undifferentiated ...
Why IQ tests still matter
[A]re IQ tests valid, unbiased measures of general intelligence? They certainly didn’t start out that way, says Stefan C. Dombrowski, ...
Can cutting out carbs treat epilepsy? The ketogenic diet as a drug
The ketogenic diet has actually been used in the treatment of epilepsy since the 1920s. It had been known that ...
