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.
Unraveling the genetic mystery of autism
Until the 1970s, the prevailing belief in psychiatry was that autism was a consequence of bad parenting. In the 1940s, ...
100 years after the Scopes trial, creationist beliefs show no sign of waning
Some people thought the 1925 Scopes monkey trial marked a cultural defeat for biblical fundamentalism. But a century after what ...
‘Our brains aren’t just fancy computers’: AI is still no match for humans. Here’s why
In some ways, we do work like computers and use distributed networks of firing neurons in important ways. ... "I also ...
Ancient North American ancestry: Geneticist helps Pueblo tribe affirm its long-denied roots
Members of New Mexico’s Picuris Pueblo Tribal Nation have long told stories about having descended from ancient North American ancestors ...
‘I was a ticking time bomb’: Surgeons perform first-ever human bladder transplant
Surgeons in Southern California have performed the first human bladder transplant, introducing a new, potentially life-changing procedure for people with ...
‘Viewpoint: ‘Going full RFK, Jr’.—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton promotes conspiracy theories about dental hygiene and breakfast cereal
[Ken] Paxton, the Texas Attorney General and Senate candidate ... idea of a good government cause is to sue ...
Will the U.S. lose a generation of young scientists as research projects are gutted
[Y]oung scientists represents the future of American science: the next innovators, mentors, and developers of lifesaving treatments. These cancellations were framed ...
COVID wet market nature origin theory gets a boost: The genetic trail of coronavirus origins
In a study published on [May 7, 2025], a team of researchers compared the evolutionary story of SARS with that of Covid 17 ...
Severe cases of autism on the rise? Another study contradicts RFK, Jr. claim
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the government’s new autism findings, he painted a grim ...
Georgia’s heartbeat law: Hospital says they must keep brain-dead woman on life support until the birth of the fetus
With [the mother's] due date still more than three months away, it could be one of the longest such pregnancies ...
RFK, Jr.’s FDA banning prescription cavity-preventing fluoride supplements used mostly by low income children
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun the process to eliminate fluoride drops and tablets prescribed to children to ...
‘No more dudes in dresses’: Pentagon implementing Defense Secretary Hegseth’s directive to purge 1,000 transgender military
The Pentagon will immediately begin moving as many as 1,000 openly identifying transgender service members out of the military and ...
Repairing a broken code of life: In CRISPR breakthrough, rewriting the misspelling of infant’s DNA cures him of rare liver disease
In a historic medical breakthrough, a child diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder has been successfully treated with a customized ...
Viewpoint: Screening embryos for diseases—slippery slope and the advantages of being rich
[D]espite [Noor] Siddiqui’s efforts to cast herself as a modern-day Jonas Salk, [Orchid Health genetic screening services are] not a ...
$500 million universal flu vaccine: Moonshot-like project proposes to use 50-year old technology that likely won’t work
Dubbed Generation Gold Standard, the project is aimed at creating a flu shot that doesn't have to be updated every ...
South Korea’s Haenyeo—Did these legendary women evolve to dive?
An island 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula is home to a unique and ...
Why and where cancer rates are climbing in younger adults while overall cancer rates decline
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have completed a comprehensive analysis of cancer statistics for different age groups ...
CRISPR chaos: Court ruling reignites patent war, could upend who is credited with the breakthrough
[T]he US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier will get another chance ...
Bizarre but typical: RFK, Jr. takes his grandchildren swimming in sewage and feces filled creek—and brags about it
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has revealed that he went swimming with his children in a Washington ...
‘It’s harder to get off antidepressants than heroin’: RFK. Jr.’s exaggerates but SSRI’s are not risk free
The medical community has reacted with alarm to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s claim that his family members have had ...
Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that only people born female are female. Now there’s relief, anger, confusion, and lawsuits
When Britain’s Supreme Court made its landmark ruling last month that only biological women are women, some people said it helped ...
FDA regulatory maze: China has replaced the U.S. as the global hub for biotech drug development
Five years ago, U.S. pharmaceutical companies didn’t license any new drugs from China. By 2024, one-third of their new compounds were coming ...
AI tool can assess a person’s health by analyzing a photograph
Scientists have developed an A.I. tool that they say can help assess a patient’s health — and potentially guide their ...
Treating genetic disorders before birth: Prenatal and newborn genetic screening is surging
Advances in modern medicine allow us to treat fetuses and newborn babies for genetic or inherited diseases. Recent studies have ...
Nuclear energy renaissance: China leapfrogs the U.S. and other reticent western countries
China has once again beat everyone else to a clean energy milestone—its new nuclear reactor is reportedly one of the ...
Viewpoint: ‘Manufacturing in region for region”—How raising tariffs could help reduce climate instability
[P]resident Trump’s trade war might accelerate environmental progress. That may sound counterintuitive. The Trump administration is no champion of green ...
“Total crackpot” and “talks to trees”: Trump picks ‘functional medicine’ advocate for Surgeon General
President Trump’s selection of Dr. Casey Means, a Stanford-educated wellness specialist and book author, as his next surgeon general [has] ...
