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.
Plasma exchange: What is the skinny on the suddenly-hot longevity therapy for the aging wealthy
A medical treatment used for health emergencies and autoimmune disorders is becoming the hot new wellness trend for CEOs, athletes, ...
Why we need a moonshot project for a universal flu vaccine
H5N1 bird flu is here. It’s moving from animals to people in ways not seen before. It’s spreading to new ...
‘Intelligence in a dish’: ‘Brain organoids’ grown on petri dishes show signs of developing eyes
The proto-eyes are what really disturbed me. For the past decade, medical researchers have been growing living, miniature replicas of ...
Liminal space: The brief moments between wake to sleep where your brain exists in the ‘twilight zone’
Each night as you lay down to sleep, you embark on an extraordinary journey – not through space, but through ...
Why do people who suffer from certain mental illnesses ‘hear voices’?
Auditory hallucinations are likely the result of abnormalities in two brain processes: a “broken” corollary discharge that fails to suppress ...
Viewpoint: A Trump revolution is coming to the Environmental Protection Agency. Here’s a guide to what might realistically happen
A return to the presidency by Donald Trump has raised questions about the future of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ...
In the evolutionary race, humans are running the distance
Many experts, such as professor Dan Lieberman, think that humans have evolved to be distance runners – the better to ...
Viewpoint: Vaccine opponent and conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. poised to remake US health policy in his twisted vision
The vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr. is “going to help make America healthy again”, Trump told ...
Why ‘peer review’ is no longer the gold standard for quality, objective science research
Today, I focus on the use and abuse of the peer-reviewed literature to produce tactical science which I define as: ...
Viewpoint: The alternative medicine, wellness industry con game
Alternative medicine has become a scrutiny-free wonderland for anything and everything. ... We are at a point in human history ...
‘Nature’s little alchemist: Microbes and the origin of life
A story about the origins of life in the cosmos starts at Earth’s equator, where Dian Fiantis, a professor of ...
The first neural bypass implant powered by AI has helped a patient recover from near-full-body paralysis
A New York man who was left paralyzed after a diving accident is starting to regain movement a year after ...
Swiss surgeons use a PlayStation controller to perform a remote endoscopy in Hong Kong
In a groundbreaking experiment, surgeons in Switzerland successfully performed an endoscopic procedure on a pig 5,780 miles away in Hong ...
Virtue over impact: Greens environmentalist policy likely to backfire
[There is] a particular kind of increasingly common environmental regulation: one that is short on impact but big on virtue ...
Genomic prediction: Start-up claims to offer parents a way to select ‘desirable’ traits like IQ. Will it work?
There is broad scientific consensus that intelligence is partly inherited and that genes play a significant role. But pinning this ...
Ancient DNA can be an indicator of your ability to digest carbs
If you’ve ever struggled to reduce your carb intake, ancient DNA might be to blame. It has long been known ...
Trump’s prospective ‘Health Czar’ RFK, Jr. says new administration will push to ban fluoride in water
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged ... that a future Trump administration would seek to remove fluoride from drinking water as ...
Brains and risk: The genetics of politics
Elections tend to bring out strong emotions in people. As voters evaluate the candidates, emotions can rise. Political disagreements may ...
Over regulation or protecting the public? Republicans and Democrats have very different visions on how to regulate AI
If Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November, the guardrails could come off of artificial intelligence development, even ...
Viewpoint: How progressives have undermined their stated agenda and slowed the introduction of new drugs
With the rallying cry of corporate greed, each year of the Biden-Harris administration has brought successive government interventions in the ...
Electrostatic ‘thinking’: How insects evolved to navigate the world
For years, biologists have wondered whether bees have [some] grand sense that we lack. The static electricity they accumulate by ...
Health alert: Here’s what you can expect if you take anti-aging supplements
Among the many wonder products out there on the market, there is a type that inspires equal parts fascination and ...
Echolocation: How tongue clicks allow the blind to ride bikes
Human echolocation has at times allowed people to ride bikes or play basketball despite being completely blind from a very ...
Viewpoint: Trump leverages RFK Jr.’s endorsement to rally support for his ‘radical deregulation agenda’
When [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], the country’s most famous anti-vaccine activist, suspended his campaign to endorse Donald Trump, it [represented] ...
15 ‘skinny genes’ may be key to losing weight
The secret to losing weight could all be down to a combination of 14 ‘skinny genes’, a new study has ...
Why many mathematicians say that ‘the number zero is mankind’s greatest achievement’
From zero sprang the laws of the universe, number theory, and modern mathematics. “Zero is, by many mathematicians, definitely considered ...
Following new Idaho law, doctors delayed the pelvic exam of a pregnant 13-year-old girl because they couldn’t locate her homeless mother
[Mom-to-be Aleah], 36 weeks pregnant, was having mild but frequent contractions.... In most cases, physician Caitlin Gustafson would have begun ...
