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.
Young forever? This millionaire paid $20,000 to get gene therapy, aiming to slow down the aging process
Millionaire Bryan Johnson visited a remote island to extend his life. He spent $20,000 for a treatment that would keep ...
Move over, CRISPR: Jumping gene found in humans acts as a bridge between bits of unconnected DNA
The next generation genomic design method that can be used to program and edit DNA is called the bridge recombinase ...
Our intestines are teeming with bacteria. Could bloodstreams have a microbiome too?
Your gut has its own microbiome. Some scientists believe the blood does too, but a massive study casts doubt on ...
Genghis Khan has over 16 million descendants today — but he’s not alone. 10 other men have massive genetic legacies
A 2015 study showed that ten other men have a lot of descendants. The paper is just one of several ...
RFK, Jr. skewered after Vanity Fair profile includes photo of presidential aspirant eating grilled dog during Asia trip 14 years ago
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) became a pariah after she admitted that she once killed a puppy named Cricket for being “untrainable,” in ...
Delaying menopause? Why keeping ovaries working longer could potentially prevent age-related diseases
Scientists are studying how to keep the ovaries working longer — and potentially, prevent age-related diseases in the process ...
Is the universe conscious? Similarities between brain and cosmos prompt “cosmopsychism” theory
Research has found the universe is similar in structure to the human brain. Does this mean the cosmos has a ...
History of malaria: ‘Ancient pathogen DNA’ reveals how devastating disease has impacted humans over thousands of years
Recent paper sheds light on the historical distribution and genetic diversity of malaria-causing species through ancient DNA analysis ...
The last mammoths thrived on this island for thousands of years, before suddenly being wiped out. What happened?
About 9,200 years ago, when the ice had retreated for several millennia from most of the northern hemisphere, a herd ...
What is intelligence? Categorizing the myriad ways animals and humans ‘reason’
What is intelligence? People treat intelligence as a coherent whole, it remains ill-defined because it’s really a shifting array ...
‘A village in a dish’: Mini brain organoids made of cells from multiple people could help researchers test drugs using a ‘broad diversity of human genetics’
Model systems called organoids mimic the cellular make-up of organs, such as the gut and the lungs. Researchers make them by ...
Technology and mental illness: ‘New wave of tools offers quicker, more objective assessments to help patients and doctors’
Whoever said the eyes are the windows to the soul probably didn’t imagine them being a key to diagnosing severe ...
‘Your life experience doesn’t die with you’: Here’s how epigenetics can shape—and reverse—deep-seated behavior and memories
What if the old polarised debate about the competing influences of nature and nurture was due a 21st-century upgrade? ...
Pup science: ‘Peering deep into the bodies and minds of cats and dogs to understand why we, and they, bond’
Scientists around the world are peering deep into the bodies and minds of cats and dogs, hoping to learn more ...
Viewpoint: As neuroscience embraces AI, what makes us human becomes even more critical
The opportunities researchers have to study the human brain in never-before-seen ways thanks to Artificial Intelligence ...
The butterfly effect: Can a fluttering insect in Canada unleash a hurricane in the Pacific? Understanding chaos and consequences
Chaos is a term scientists coined to describe how small events in complex systems can have vast, unpredictable consequences ...
Eat like we were programmed by evolution? Then we’d eat whatever we want
Nutrition influencers claim we should eat meat-heavy diets like our ancestors did. But our ancestors didn’t actually eat that way ...
Tattoo health risks? New study links inking to lymphoma, a type of cancer
We know that tattoos do have certain risks, especially infections from needles that aren’t properly sterilized, but that’s pretty rare ...
Slide show: 99% of human ancestors died 900,000 years ago. How we weathered this catastrophe and what it foretells as climate dislocations escalate
A study published in August 2023 suggests that human ancestors experienced a dramatic population decline 900,000 to 800,000 years ago, ...
Viewpoint: ‘It’s like a constant scream inside my head’ — How tinnitus hijacked my brain
Tinnitus is like a constant scream inside my head, depriving me of what I formerly treasured: the moments of serene ...
Dumping the annoying CPAP machine: More than 40% of obese people taking Tirzepatides to lose weight find they soon have no need for the breathing device
The diabetes and weight loss drug tirzepatide (Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes; Zepbound for obesity) was so effective at reducing sleep disruptions in patients ...
Viewpoint: Would super-intelligent AI find humans boring?
The merging of human and artificial intelligence raises questions about the future of humanity and the essence of being human ...
Viewpoint: Performance-enhancing vices — Does it take a bad person to be a good athlete?
Selfishness channels ambition, envy drives competition, pride aids the win. Does it take a bad person to be a good ...
Check your sources: Top 10 AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, provide answers from Russian disinformation websites
NewsGuard audit finds that 32% of the time, leading AI chatbots spread Russian disinformation narratives created by John Mark Dougan, ...
‘CRISPR isn’t just being used to save lives, but also to improve the quality of life when people age’: Q&A with bioengineer Stanley Qi on past, present and future of CRISPR technology
Over the past decade, CRISPR has taken the biomedical world and life sciences by storm for its ability to easily ...
Canine communication: Here’s what your dog is trying to tell you
The secret ways your dog is trying to communicate and tell you something but you’re just missing the signs ...
1 in 5 people have seasonal allergies — up from just 1% at the beginning of the 20th century. What’s the cause?
For around 20 per cent of us, nature's annual awakening comes with side effects: Runny nose, sneezing, and itchy eyes ...
