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.
Breakthrough in bee sex determination gives new insight into human genetics
Let me tell you ’bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees.... Remember that old Jewel ...
Genes show dogs are descendants of now-extinct wolf breed
The latest genetic study to trace the origins of dogs confirms the view that they were domesticated by hunter-gatherers at ...
Analysis of baby DNA to demystify diseases
When Kira Walker was three weeks old, her pediatrician noticed a problem. She was frequently hungry and had dangerously low ...
How will parents deal with fetal genome screening?
Today’s genetic technologies are not yet a crystal ball for seeing a child’s future, but doctors are closer than ever ...
The will to work out might be genetic
To a certain kind of sports fan—the sort with a Ph.D. in physiology—Olga Kotelko is just about the most interesting ...
Genomics is as important as the discovery of antibiotics
The researcher behind Australia's acquisition of a breakthrough DNA sequencing machine said genomics could have as significant an impact on ...
Under pressure, even evolution evolves
Although Darwin’s ideas have clearly triumphed in modern biology, hints of a more Lamarckian style of inheritance have continued to ...
Preparing students to meet their genes in the classroom
How much information do you need before deciding whether to have your genome sequenced? In 2010, the University of California, ...
DNA tests to tell if U.S. woman’s body was accidentally cremated in Canada
The daughter of a U.S. woman whose casket contained the wrong body says DNA tests will be performed to determine ...
Using gene therapy, patients with rare sight disorders get vision partly restored
Two men with progressive blindness have regained some of their vision after taking part in the first clinical trial of ...
FDA clampdown on consumer genetics is overcautious
The FDA's precautionary approach to 23andMe may present more of a threat to consumer health than 23andMe's test results ever ...
Genetic disorder causes people to be born without fingerprints
In 2007, dermatologist Peter Itin was contacted by a Swiss woman with an unusual quandry: She was having trouble entering ...
Rat empathy is environmental, not genetic
Rats, like humans, will show kindness to strangers, but only if the rats in distress are of a familiar type, ...
Evolution from water to land, bone by bone
Travel back far enough in your genealogy, and you will run into a fish. Before about 370 million years ago, ...
DNA analysis solves 80-year-old murder mystery
While DNA analysis is often used to catch perpetrators of crimes, recent work from scientists at the University of Leicester ...
$1000 genome may finally be in sight
Despite all the talk, no company has yet met the goal of sequencing a human genome for $1,000 or less ...
Tracking genes that up suicide risk with antidepressant use
For years, it's been a controversial side effect of antidepressants: for all the patients helped by the drugs, there was ...
Some ethnically linked genes make it harder to fight off the flu
Research indicated that some Indigenous people such as in Alaska and Australia displayed limited immunity response to the effects of ...
Video: Ramez Naam discusses linking human brains
At a recent TEDxRainier talk, author and technologist Ramez Naam discussed the current science of sending sights, sounds, and sensations ...
Gene therapy successful in treating leukemia. Can it be used to fight other cancers as well?
A new cancer treatment pioneered at the University of Pennsylvania has generated a lot of excitement in the field and ...
Are redheads genetically less attractive?
The scientific answer to the question “is there a basis for the stereotype that redheads are unattractive” is what someone ...
Minn. Dept of Health required to destroy newborn blood samples, after controversy
By the end of January 13, 2014, the Minnesota Department of Health plans to have destroyed about 1.1 million archived ...
Control and access to DNA in today’s high-tech world
In today’s high-tech world, our privacy concerns typically revolve around usernames, passwords and PIN numbers. But one piece of personal ...
Using DNA to personally predict drug reactions
Scientists searching for a way to avoid prescribing medications to patients that may cause dangerous physical or behavioral responses are ...
Co-evolution of human and microbe reduces risk of stomach cancer
The Colombian town of Tuquerres, nestled high in the Andes Mountains, has one of the highest rates of stomach cancer ...
Huge new genomics study searches for roots of genetic disease in 100k people
Here comes genomics, Take 2. Pharmaceutical companies invested heavily in genetic studies in the frenzy after the sequencing of the ...
Injecting DNA in the brain: What’s the promise of gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease?
Gene therapy has been used to successfully treat a number of challenging diseases, such as leukemia. Now, scientists are hoping ...
