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.
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
The future of labor? Meet the new generation of humanoid robots
Humanoid robots are long-standing icons of the future alongside space travel and flying cars. Some tech leaders and investors believe ...
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 ...
Reworking the brain: Experimental stimulation relieves some with decades of pain
Edward Mowery lived with excruciating pain for years: Picture being put into a hot frying pan, he said, and then someone ...
Milestone in organ transplants, as FDA approves gene-edited pig kidneys for human clinical trials
Scientists have reached a major milestone in animal-to-human transplant research as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the ...
Thinking of using AI for therapy? Here are 5 things to keep in mind
Be mindful. Be aware of the “sycophantic nature of these entities” and keep an eye on how much time you ...
With Trump’s support, RFK, Jr.’s CDC to use unverified data to claim that the Covid shots are linked to 25 child deaths
Trump health officials plan to link coronavirus vaccines to the deaths of 25 children as they consider limiting which Americans ...
DNA screening start-up claims it can screen embryos for the likelihood of age-related diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s
Prospective parents using IVF will soon be able to rank embryos using genetic and other information in the hopes of extending ...
Russia, China and the surge in dark money funding tying up European courts and regulators of critical products
The litigation funding industry is growing rapidly as unaccountable foreign money pours into our courtrooms. ... China and Russia are both ...
Trump administration claims $10 million worth of contraceptives headed to low-income countries destroyed — Belgium finds stockpile intact
The Trump administration told The New York Times ... that it had destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of birth control ...
US children receive 92 vaccine doses? RFK, Jr.’s vaccine math doesn’t add up
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a Senate hearing ... that children receive up to ...
It’s often said that humans and chimps share 99% of their DNA. That means a lot less than almost everybody believes it means
Early research suggested that human and chimp genomes are more than 98% identical. "What it means is that for each ...
RFK, Jr’s child health plan promises big with 128 ideas, with little-to-no actionable solutions or details
The Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Kennedy, identified four potential drivers behind rising rates of chronic disease among ...
What legal rights should non-conscious AI’s have?
In Silicon Valley, there’s a small but growing field called model welfare, which is working to figure out whether AI models ...
Greece welcomed the humanoid Olympic games. Don’t worry athletes—it will be many years before they are true competitors
With jerky determination, robots played soccer, wowed children with shadow-boxing skills and shot arrows ... at the birthplace of the ...
RFK, Jr.’s report to suggest Tylenol use during pregnancy has links to autism. What does the science say?
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has in recent months teased a September announcement in which he would identify the ...
Breakthrough diabetes therapy uses CRISPR to help body make insulin again
People with type 1 diabetes must constantly rely on insulin injections or pumps, usually for the rest of their life after diagnosis ...
