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.
AI chip-powered retinal implant shown to help blind victims see again
People who had lost their sight have regained the ability to read after receiving an innovative electronic eye implant paired ...
Viewpoint: Dissecting HHS Secretary and tort lawyer RFK, Jr.’s Tylenol-autism scam: Billions of dollars of class action lawsuits
RFK Jr. is relying on select studies and questionable experts for his autism claims, using the bully pulpit of federal power to ...
ChatGPT and other generative AI suppresses brain activity. Is it slowly making us stupid?
With some MIT colleagues, [Nataliya] Kosmyna set up an experiment ... to monitor people’s brain activity while they wrote essays, ...
As you age, even a small amount of alcohol each week can increase the risk of dementia
For years, the common wisdom and science was that a little bit of alcohol wasn’t bad — and even beneficial ...
More than ¼ of Americans live with chronic pain. There may be a neurological ‘off button’ to block it
Arthritis. Endometriosis. Fibromyalgia. Multiple Sclerosis. Postherpetic neuralgia. Sometimes, chronic pain doesn’t even come with a diagnosis, but is the aftermath of ...
Rewriting nature: The promise and peril of gene editing wildlife to save it
[One] of the world's largest conservation groups will weigh in on how ... gene-editing tools should be used to aid ...
Latest Trump and RFK, Jr. health misinformation rabbit hole: No, aluminum in vaccines is not dangerous or causally linked to autism
“We want no aluminum in the vaccine,” Trump said during the White House press conference, surprising even some ardent anti-vaccine ...
How social media promotes far-right extremism
Over the past decades, far-right extremists have carried out several attacks in the West. Many of them were radicalised through ...
Dr. Google gets an upgrade—Dr. AI is not so problematic. Here’s how to use it
Chances are high that you have used artificial intelligence to research your own medical concerns or will be tempted to ...
Vaccine rejectionism spurring continued surge in U.S. measles cases
Nearly two months after a deadly, massive measles outbreak in Texas was declared over, the highly contagious disease continues to spread across ...
What do MAHA and MAGA supporters think about vaccines?
At the start of his second term, President Donald Trump established the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, chaired by Health and ...
Here’s the scoop on Big Tech’s multi-million dollar carbon removal climate bet
Today, after [US pulp and paper] factories chip the softwood and digest it into pulp, the leftover lignin, spent chemicals, ...
Viewpoint: Revisiting the debate over genes and IQ
In The Bell Curve, Murray and Herrnstein argue that intelligence, as measured by an IQ score, is a crucial determinant of ...
More than half of Americans take supplements. That’s becoming a health problem
At a time when Americans are buying and taking record amounts of supplements — well over half of adults consume one — ...
With gene editing revolutionizing health care, parents of children with orphan diseases ask: ‘What about our kids?’
For families of the pediatric rare disease community, headlines drive elevated hope and excitement. But they also lead to heightened ...
‘The Arrogant Ape’: A takedown of the human supremacy complex
In the grand story of evolution, the crowning human distinction is our big brain. But our large heads have been ...
There may be a genetic reason why more women than men suffer from depression
Women are genetically at higher risk of clinical depression than men, Australian researchers found in a study published ... that could change how ...
Gay and lesbian conversion therapy: The Supreme Court is debating its legal future. What is it?
As a teenager, Julie Rodgers attended Tuesday night group therapy sessions in which young people confessed their same-sex transgressions: anal ...
MAGA delusion: Republicans far more likely than Democrats and independents to believe Trump and RFK, Jr.’s false claim that tylenol use can cause autism
While few adults across partisanship think that it is “definitely true” that taking Tylenol during pregnancy increases the risk of ...
Dump BMI? Where fat is stored in the body may matter more than how much there is overall
At first glance, a BMI chart seems pretty straightforward. But researchers are discovering that where fat is stored in the ...
Key to ocean life, coral reefs are disappearing on the way to extinction. Should we mobilize gene editing to save a threatened species?
Coral reefs are fundamental to the health of our oceans. They cover less than 1% of the Earth’s ocean, but ...
Skin cells can now be used to fertilize eggs
Human eggs made from a volunteer’s skin DNA were fertilized in the lab on September 30, 2025, and some grew ...
Male Gen Zers’ rejection of reason: ‘Science can slide into conspiracy-tinged mazes rooted in misinformation’
After 30 years as a researcher, science communicator and university science teacher, I’ve been unsettled by what appears to be ...
Dystopian future? Should the wealthy be able to use AI to hardwire physical or cognitive advantages into their genomes
It is quite possible that the most immediate threat AI poses to humanity is not that its superhuman intelligence will ...
A liver extracted from a genetically modified pig transplanted into a 71-year-old man
Surgeons in China have for the first time transplanted a section of liver extracted from a genetically modified pig into ...
How badly will a long government shutdown impact science?
Threats of federal shutdowns have become routine in the past decade, but this closure could be different: US President Donald Trump’s administration ...
Infertility breakthrough: AI can identify the fastest swimming sperm and then a robot plants it into the embryo
In-vitro fertilization has produced more than 13 million babies since its inception in the late 1970s, but it remains a highly manual ...
