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.
Human fetal biology is much more complex than the personhood movement is equipped to handle
What if at the very beginning stages of development you absorbed your twin’s cells? You’d be twins—a phenomenon called a ...
Chromosome ‘telomeres’ that protect human health can also lead to deadly brain cancer
Telomeres are to chromosomes what plastic caps are to the ends of shoelaces - they stop them unravelling as they ...
Genes controling eye color also affect pain perception
They're often referred to as the windows to the soul, but now it's been claimed your eyes can actually reveal ...
Corals and humans evolved complex mechanisms for necessary cell death
For us to live, parts of us must die. Every day, billions of our cells shrink, break up into small ...
Does our anthropocentric view of genetics keep us from scientific discovery?
We often attribute disease causing agency to microbes. But any human heath effects they have were discovered haphazardly through evolution ...
Google will be home for 10,000 genomes for autism research
Google Inc. and Autism Speaks, a major autism research foundation, plan to announce on Tuesday a deal in which the ...
Insect species help foresnic scientists
In a thick wooded area, a dead body lies. Within 5 to 10 minutes, a slew of tiny winged visitors ...
Couple with history of obesity arrested because of son’s weight
A couple in the United Kingdom has been arrested for neglect and child cruelty for letting their 11-year-old son become ...
Evolution made modern human females thinner than ancestors
Modern day women have slim hips and narrower waists thanks to evolution - not calorie couting. Scientists made the discovery ...
Genetic and enviromental factors controling obesity epidemic are far from being decoded
A number of recent articles by scientists involved in research on obesity make a pointed case that, in spite of ...
CRISPR editing might stop HIV
Take a hot new method that's opened up a new era of genetic engineering, apply it to the wonder stem ...
Knowledge of evolution gains ground among public
Since Gallup started polling Americans about the origins of man in 1982, creationists have stayed pretty faithful to their views ...
Nanoparticles in sunscreen get bad rap, but evidence they cause human harm is slim
Most consumer sunscreens use nanoparticles to keep products effective and transparent. But some call the safety of this micro technology ...
FDA likely to approve new recombinant hemophilia drug
A recombinant fusion drug combining the Factor VIII protein with an FC antibody peptide to extend its lifetime in circulation ...
Botched poll encourages view that personal genomic testing could be dangerous
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News have just published the first survey conducted by their Science Advisory Board, a project called ...
U.S. Brain Initiative budget will rival that of Human Genome Project
The National Institutes of Health set an ambitious $4.5 billion price tag on its part of President Obama’s Brain Initiative ...
Has the war on synthetic biology already begun?
Scientists are worried that synthetic biology might succumb to the same vitriolic culture war that has slowed innovation of genetic ...
Behavioral genetics enters the courtroom
Behavioral genetics is now being used in courtrooms to help establish and justify defendants crime and reduce sentences. But the ...
8,000 year old mitochondrial DNA provides insight about first human farmers
The mitochondrial DNA of the first Near Eastern farmers has been sequenced for the first time. In the research, published ...
‘Buttressed against punches’: Did human face evolve to protect against fights?
Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures. For many ...
Further advancement for MS stem cell treatments
There is more good news from leading stem cell biotech Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) on preclinical rodent studies using stem ...
Beyond BRCA1&2, more genes responsible for breast cancer risk
Four new genes have been added to the growing list of those known to cause increased breast cancer risk when ...
Bone marrrow stem cells could repair neural damage in brain
A scientist at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is hoping to unlock the potential of stem cells as a way ...
Microbial passengers of our gut and skin change as we grow
When we are born, our mothers seed us with our first bacteria. As we grow up, these microbes—the microbiota—behave like ...
Rapid DNA sequencing saves teenager from fatal bacterial infection
Joshua Osborn, 14, lay in a coma at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, Wis. For weeks his brain had ...
Evidence suggests ‘gay genes’ do exisit, but some straight women have them, too
The claim that homosexual men share a “gay gene” created a furore in the 1990s. But new research two decades ...
Kidney disease one area where genetics underlies racial health differences
Talking about race is never just black and white, but when it comes to health, one thing is crystal clear: ...
