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.
The laughing reflex: Giggling, endorphins and evolution
“Is laughter contagious? Well, actually, all emotions are contagious,” Dr Sandi Mann, chartered member of the British Psychological Society .... “We ...
The history of vaccine hesitancy, from smallpox to COVID-19
Vaccine policy made national headlines last week when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine guidance committee met and ...
Human carelessness and climate change are killing millions of animals. Gene editing could save them. Should we use it?
It wasn’t our intention that humanity would become the planet’s greatest evolutionary force; yet the fact that we are confronts us ...
A therapeutic psychedelic without the hallucinatory trip? With the help of AI, it’s in the works
While there's growing evidence that psychedelic drugs can effectively treat severe mental health conditions, especially in cases where traditional treatments have failed, they ...
New evidence underscores that autism stretches back to our early hominid existence and is likely linked to neurons responsible for high intelligence
[As] debates over modern medicine dominate the headlines, new research suggests the roots of autism’s high prevalence in humans may ...
What’s the genetic secret to living past 110?
There's no escaping the unrelenting passage of time, but supercentenarians who live to see their 110th birthday have a peculiar ...
Viewpoint: Johnson and Johnson’s Tylenol crisis #2: How RFK, Jr. deceived the company and health experts
Tylenol set the gold standard for corporate crisis management in 1982 after people died from taking its pain medication that ...
Why are millennials getting cancer and other serious diseases earlier than prior generations?
The rise in early-onset cancers has drawn a growing number of scientists into a shared investigation: not into the inherited ...
Could leucovorin be the magic bullet to treat autism?
The medication is called leucovorin. It’s also known as folinic acid; like folic acid, it’s a form of folate, a ...
RFK’s anti-vaccine agenda has created state-by-state disparities across America in vaccine access
In the country’s most conservative states, lawmakers have fallen in line with recommendations from federal agencies and have limited access ...
What is leucovorin, the drug RFK, Jr. and Dr. Oz claim could arrest autism?
In a Sept. 22 press conference, the Trump Administration introduced what it says is an “exciting treatment” for autism: leucovorin, ...
Can devout Muslims or Jews receive organ transplants from genetically-altered pigs?
Now biotech companies are raising genetically altered pigs to transplant their organs into patients whose own kidneys have failed. Experts in the ...
Are human’s 5 senses the optimal number to interpret the world or might evolution provide better tools over time?
Animal senses—including sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—are a masterwork of evolution, enabling an untold number of species to navigate the ...
New AI tool can predict each person’s risk for more than 1,000 diseases
Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence tool that can predict your personal risk of more than 1,000 diseases, and ...
Biotechnology is pushing the limits of beauty products
From fungi-derived ingredients to lab-grown collagen stimulators, biotechnology is rewriting the rules of what beauty products can achieve. At its core, ...
Viewpoint: ‘An entire ecosystem of antiscience has taken hold and turned deadly’
The ideologically-motivated assault on science threatens us all. Climate change is generating devastating heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods and superstorms. ...
Autism link debunked: Scientists challenge Trump and RFK, Jr. claim that pregnant women with high fevers should not take acetaminophen (aka paracetamol and Tylenol)
Scientists comment on reports that the Trump Administration will link paracetamol (Tylenol) use to autism in children. Prof Ian Douglas, ...
RFK, Jr. vs. the vaccine health establishment. Who’s right?
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has had a busy few months. He fired the director of ...
New KFF-Washington Post survey explores parents’ trust in, and confusion about, childhood vaccines as the Trump administration revamps federal policies
The poll comes as the Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to question the ...
CRISPR breakthrough that can remove the chromosome responsible for Down syndrome raises ethical questions
In Feb. 2025, researchers from Mie University in Japan developed a method for removing the third copy of chromosome 21, the structure ...
What does decision-making in the brain look like?
Neuroscientists from around the world have worked in parallel to map, for the first time, the entire brain activity of mice ...
On the cusp of dramatic advances in cancer treatments, Trump sharply curtails publicly-funded research
When America declared war on cancer more than 50 years ago, there was a misguided assumption outside the scientific community that ...
Genes take a back seat as culture drives human evolution forward
Researchers at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary ...
Scientists discover hidden brain protein, potentially leading to treating Alzheimer’s before symptoms even appear
Drugs developed to reduce levels of a protein found at high levels in Alzheimer’s patients could lead to treatments aimed ...
While chronic illness mortality has declined globally, progress stalls in the U.S.
A new global study shows that deaths from such “noncommunicable” conditions have been declining in most countries — but the ...
From measles to HPV, the financial cost of vaccine avoidance could bankrupt the entire health care system
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to undermine vaccines in America are not just scientifically absurd. They’re also financially ruinous. The ...
Viewpoint: What happens when you Silicon Valley-ify the dubious effort to breed super children?
An understandable ethics outcry greeted the June announcement of a software platform that offers aspiring parents “genetic optimization” of their embryos. Touted by ...
