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.
Origins of symmetry: This ancient worm-like creature may be a key to our own evolution
A worm-like creature that burrowed on the seafloor more than 500 million years ago may be key to the evolution ...
Racing for a COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t mean we’ll have one this year
THE CORONA-VACCINE RACE: The desperate search for a vaccine for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is in ...
Searching for coronavirus ‘antidote’ in the blood of former patients
Hospitals in New York City are gearing up to use the blood of people who have recovered from COVID-19 as ...
Tackling coronavirus medical supply shortages with 3-D printers
Multinational companies and startups world-wide are reprogramming their cutting-edge 3-D printers to tackle shortages of critical medical equipment caused by ...
Something you want to forget? CRISPR could be used to ‘delete’ traumatic memories
Good memories give us a sensation of warmth and hope for better times, but bad memories can cause serious trauma ...
Don’t be a ‘covidiot’: Navigating the world of coronavirus misinformation and ignorance
A pandemic was declared. Italy is on lockdown, with more cases than China. Other countries are following suit. Governments everywhere ...
Strange cave-fellows? Unexpected discovery suggests 3 early human species lived together in South Africa
Two million years ago, three different early humans—Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and the earliest-known Homo erectus—appear to have lived at the same time in ...
Infographic: There’s no such thing as ‘too young’ to be hospitalized by coronavirus
Getting infected by COVID-19 isn’t just a worry for the elderly. That’s one of the first findings about the virus in the ...
‘Deep structural problems’: Examining the US failure to quickly develop a coronavirus test
On a Jan. 15 conference call, a leading scientist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assured local ...
Italy considers a return to normal—for people with the ‘right’ coronavirus antibodies
There is a growing sense in Italy that the worst may have passed. ... That glimmer of hope has turned ...
Squids’ ability to edit their own RNA could lead to human disease treatments
For nearly every animal on Earth, any changes made to the DNA are transmitted from the cell nucleus by messenger ...
University of Hawaii launches research into why ‘certain individuals and racial/ethnic groups’ might be at greater risk from COVID-19
LifeDNA, Inc., a pioneering personal genomics company, has initiated a coronavirus study aimed at understanding why certain individuals and racial/ethnic ...
Destroying inflammatory ‘zombie’ cells could slow age-related disease
For decades, scientists had ignored senescent cells—which are trapped in a long-term state of cell cycle arrest—dismissing them as artifacts ...
Cases of COVID-19 reinfection reported. Does that shatter immunity hopes?
Troubling headlines have been cropping up across Asia: Some patients in China, Japan and South Korea who were diagnosed with ...
Coronavirus test uncertainty: False negatives could be as high as 30 percent
Health experts say they now believe nearly one in three patients who are infected are nevertheless getting a negative test ...
Explaining déjà vu: Is this eerily familiar ‘glitch in the matrix’ a form of conflict resolution?
Some think déjà vu is a sign that you're recalling an experience from a past life. Spooky! Carrie-Anne Moss, as ...
Debunking anti-aging myths and why no ‘single intervention’ is going to help us live forever
Today there are countless modern versions of the Fountain of Youth. Dietary supplements and other treatments are claimed to reverse ...
Dark side of CRISPR: Rogue scientists could design something nastier than the coronavirus
When we’ve emerged on the other side of the pandemic, Covid-19 will someday make a good story. But I worry ...
Synthetic biology amps up ‘decades-old’ vaccine technology
According to STAT, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Health (NIH) are betting on synthetic biology to ...
FDA approves rapid blood test for coronavirus antibodies. Could help determine who has ‘some’ immunity.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a new test for coronavirus antibodies, the first for use in the ...
Racing to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, using technologies both old and new
The need to rapidly develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 comes at a time of explosion in basic scientific understanding, including ...
‘Virtual dating’ and how the coronavirus is changing the romantic landscape
Welcome to dating and sex during the coronavirus pandemic. Dating apps have struggled; after all, the whole point of dating ...
Inoculating yourself against coronavirus conspiracy theories
To understand why there’s so much misinformation out there — for example, that the virus was purposely created in a ...
Dealing with ‘confusing directives’, US doctors seek coronavirus advice from Chinese counterparts
Now, fed up with what they see as inadequate and confusing directives from public health authorities, many physicians are trying ...
How long are you infectious? COVID-19 patients struggle to find an answer
Reyhan Harmanci is feeling better. After cycling through an illness she thinks was COVID-19, with headache, fever, and nausea, her ...
Coronavirus might push us towards a more automated society
There’s plenty of hope and opportunity to be found in this crisis. Peter Xing, a keynote speaker and writer on ...
Infographic: Buying time: What we gain from strong coronavirus measures, including suppression strategies
Summary of the article: Strong coronavirus measures today should only last a few weeks, there shouldn’t be a big peak ...
