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.
Researchers show how RNA molecules and proteins activate the X chromosome
X chromosomes are special, even for genetic material. They differ in number between men and women and to achieve equality ...
Scientists devise new stem cell-based approach to studying epilepsy
A new stem cell-based approach to studying epilepsy has yielded a surprising discovery about what causes one form of the ...
Five women talk about life after BRAC1 diagnosis
Sophisticated tests can reveal whether people with a family history of breast and ovarian cancer carry a genetic mutation that ...
Genetic exceptionalism and privacy
Despite privacy fears, genetic information may be less damaging than other forms of personal medical data ...
Fate of Florida oranges rests on whether activists succeed in debasing GM debate
In a journalistic tour de force, New York Times reporter Amy Harmon offers a thoughtful deconstruction of how politics and ...
Want to live to past the age of 110? It’s all genetics – and luck
There are thought to be up to 400 supercentenarians – people who have made it to 110 and beyond – ...
Burning Man laser show will project human genome into atmosphere
Would you like your genome shone 30-40 kilometres into the atmosphere from the middle of the desert with a giant ...
NIH begins gene therapy trial for Parkinson’s disease
All eyes were on Perry Cohen when he froze at the microphone. His voice failed him. He couldn’t read his ...
Scientists ID genetic basis for late-onset Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer's disease affects one in eight elderly Americans. The disease is thought to simply be a part of getting older; as one ...
Human hybrids: a closer look at the theory and evidence
There was considerable fallout, both positive and negative, from our first story covering the radical pig-chimp hybrid theory put forth by Dr ...
Natural selection is randomly inevitable
Evolutionary genetics as a field emerged in the early 20th century. There were some upsides to this. R. A. Fisher was alive, so ...
High-tech, high-risk forensics
When the police arrived last November at the ransacked mansion of the millionaire investor Raveesh Kumra, outside of San Jose, ...
New gene patent suit sparks talk of trolls
A month after a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court struck down seven Myriad Genetics patents tied to two breast cancer susceptibility genes, the company has touched ...
UK scientists develop brain disease therapy
UK scientists have developed a new stem cell therapy that could, in the best case scenario, offer a "largely curative" ...
Would Rosalind Franklin have won a Nobel for her work on viruses?
Best known for her part in discovering the structure of DNA, Franklin also discovered the structure of viruses ...
Super-organs: building body parts better than nature
Fancy a liver that works a little harder? Synthetic DNA circuits inserted into human stem cells could soon allow us ...
Do very small embryonic-like stem cells exist?
The existence of very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) has been hotly debated by scientists since they were first reported ...
Genetic testing improved student learning in personalized medicine class
Students who had their genome tested as part of a groundbreaking medical school course on personalized medicine improved their knowledge ...
Can animals evolve to survive climate change?
Many who might be skeptical that climate change is a problem that results from Human activities will say, as a ...
James Watson weighs in against Myriad in gene patent debate
Last month, co-discoverer of DNA, James Watson, took a break making controversial remarks to file an amicus brief in the ...
Stricter standards sought to curb stem-cell confusion
Pamela Robey is used to disappointing the scientists who send samples, anxious to know whether the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) ...
DNA superstorage: Apocalypse-proofing the world’s data
In terms of information density, DNA outclasses anything we’ve been able to invent. Two scientists think all the world's information ...
Preparing for the inevitable: drug resistant malaria
As parasite populations evolve and develop the new gene variants needed to evade current malaria drugs, scientists are faced with the ...
Giant viruses open Pandora’s box
Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel, evolutionary biologists at Aix-Marseille University in France, didn't know what they'd found in a water ...
Stem cells in skincare: the low-down
If you're into skincare, chances are you're also in a state of confusion. Because as exciting as new developments in ...
Testing patterns of gene expression to tell virus from bacterial infections
If you have a little kid, you know the drill. Your child develops a nasty fever, but no one's really ...
Inside the industry that supplies millions of mutant mice
It's often said that in a city, you're never far from a rat. Today's UK government figures for the numbers of ...
