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.
Sustainable drugs: Your pain killer pills may soon be made from plastic waste
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have succeeded in transforming certain plastic waste into acetaminophen using the natural properties of the ...
Wisconsin’s liberal Supreme Court bans rightwing attempt to legalize gay conversion therapy
The Wisconsin Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for the state to permanently enact a ban on conversion therapy in a ruling ...
The antivax Amish are RFK, Jr. supporters’ latest poster child for science rejectionism
Unfortunately, the Amish have become the poster child for the anti-vax movement...The implication is that vaccines are not needed, since ...
After Trump-ordered cuts, what’s left of USAID?
As the United States Agency for International Development was being dismantled in early February, aid workers and officials in Washington ...
Planned Parenthood’s precarious future
Planned Parenthood, the massive, 108-year-old network of women’s and reproductive health clinics that operates almost 600 health centers across the United States, ...
AI agents are fast gaining autonomy. What could go right and wrong?
LLM agents don’t have much of a track record yet, but to hear CEOs tell it, they will transform the ...
RFK, Jr., other vaccine skeptics claim children get too many shots too soon. Here are the facts
In 1986, a typical child was recommended to receive 11 vaccine doses — seven injections and four oral. Today, that ...
Viewpoint: Is it possible to reconcile RFK, Jr.’s wacky health conspiracy theories with his genuine commitment to improve public health?
The most powerful public health official in the US has made it his mission to tackle what he describes as ...
Even though AI tools like ChatGPT are free to use, they come at a high environmental cost
"The difference between using Google as a search engine and ChatGPT is that ChatGPT uses ten times more energy," says ...
Viewpoint: Gay journalist explains how gay quest for equal rights has been subverted by queer radicals
...Gay marriage is backed by around 70 percent of Americans, and discrimination against gay men, lesbians and transgender people is opposed by ...
Why evolution hasn’t eliminated human susceptibility to depression as it has for other diseases
Depression feels weird compared to things like fear or anger, which help us survive by warning us of danger or pushing us into action ...
 ‘AI deskilling’: What are the policy implications of a surge in the ‘knowledge economy’
The US, like other developed economies, is dominated by services...Many of these jobs, particularly the higher-skilled ones, are found in ...
Viewpoint: The junk science consequences of RFK, Jr.’s attack on respected, scrupulously peer-reviewed academic science journals
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has threatened to prevent government scientists from publishing their work in leading medical ...
 ‘Designer baby’ startup: Controversal germline editing company Bootstrap Bio raising money for germline gene editing launch
A California-startup focused on genetically editing human embryos — a step toward creating so-called designer babies — is raising money ...
Olympics on Steroids: The juiced enhanced games are coming in 2026. But that’s not the most bizarre gimmick
[James] Magnussen, a triple Olympic medalist and world champion in the 100-meter freestyle, had been retired from professional sports for ...
Hyper-communication: How our phones, emails and social media are reshaping evolution
Intuition says that the astonishing speed with which this era of hyper-communication has occurred must change us in some way or other, but ...
‘Forever chemicals’ are not forever: Bacteria easily cultivated in a lab break down PFAS
A research team from Catholic University in Piacenza has isolated about 20 bacterial species from PFAS-contaminated soil in the Veneto region. These ...
As RFK. Jr. guts science-based vaccine agency, groups move to form an independent panel
In the wake of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to shake up a key federal vaccine advisory committee, ...
Liberal majority on Wisconsin Supreme Court overturns pre-Civil War abortion ban
The Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidated a state abortion ban...that was enacted in 1849 and had been dormant for the last ...
Viewpoint: Formerly anonymous author of May HHS recommendation limiting pediatric gender surgeries reflects on report’s hostile reception
In May, the Department of Health and Human Services published a comprehensive review of treatments for gender dysphoria in minors that was swiftly criticized, ...
Changing theories on how the universe works
Intelligent life is extremely unlikely, and we pose the question only because we are the supremely rare exception. ...[A]n interdisciplinary ...
$13 billion dollar challenge: Congress poised to mull legislation that could help cool the explosion in ambulance-chasing tort cases
A bill introduced by US Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) puts reasonable checks on third-party litigation finance, and legal reform advocates and consumers should ...
Viewpoint: Convoluted SCOTUS decision upholds Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify users’ ages, but confusions abound
The Supreme Court upheld a Texas anti-pornography law...that is nearly identical to a federal law it struck down more than two decades ...
Investigative journalism at risk: Calls for stronger legal protections against corporate and political pressure
A recent convening at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in Chicago brought together leading scholars and practitioners who ...
Viewpoint: ‘Gavi has ignored the science’: RFK, Jr. pulls funding from international vaccine agencyÂ
The U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has moved to undermine public immunization programs in the United States, ...
How far has the CRISPR revolution in medicine come?
In 2016, scientists conducted the first CRISPR-related clinical trial involving human recipients and demonstrated the possibility and safety of its clinical application ...
‘Wildly distorting reality’: Some A.I. chatbots go down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorse ‘wild, mystical belief systems’
[Tech] journalists at The New York Times have received quite a few...messages, sent by people who claim to have unlocked ...
