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.
Humans are ‘evolvable’ now more than ever
In the most massive study of genetic variation yet, researchers estimated the age of more than one million variants, or ...
DNA sequencing detects cancer-related chromosome changes
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and elsewhere have demonstrated that they can directly detect cancer-related chromosomal alterations in ...
Texas representative files bill to prohibit human cloning in universities
More than 10 years after the Human Cloning Prohibition Act failed to pass at the federal level, state Rep. Richard ...
Spa in Dubai offers “stem cell facial”
At present, there are only a limited number of stem-cell therapies in existence, and they are mostly experimental and extremely ...
Stem cells used to improve drug development
Johns Hopkins researchers report concrete steps in the use of human stem cells to test how diseased cells respond to ...
Is evolution reducing our intelligence?
James R. Flynn’s observation that IQ scores experienced dramatic gains from generation to generation throughout the 20th century has been ...
Era of personalized medicine bears tangible fruit
The Personalized Medicine World Conference, PMWC 2013, to be held on January 28-29, 2013 in Silicon Valley, provides real-world insights ...
Science 2.0 founder Hank Campbell responds to Neo-eugenics
Eugenics is attempting a 21st-century comeback. This has a lot of people scared. But it also has a lot of ...
Non-invasive prenatal test for at-risk mothers recommended by US medical society
Non-invasive pre-natal screening for certain abnormalities in fetal chromosomes should be offered to at-risks mothers, recommends the American College of ...
Engineered marine algae could expand biofuel production
Nanowerk LLCBioengineered marine algae expands environments where biofuels can be ...Phys.OrgThe ability to genetically transform marine algae into a biofuel ...
Should synthetic biology be open-source?
Synthetic biology, the newer, cooler branch of genetic engineering, has gained a lot of attention in recent years because of ...
‘Fat But Happy’ Gene Raises Questions About Obesity, Depression
Extra pounds are usually considered a downer, and obesity has been linked to higher rates of depression, mood and anxiety ...
Opposition to genetic engineering is immoral
There’s an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished. That certainly seems to be true for many breakthroughs in ...
Are we getting dumber?
It’s easy to think of history as a march of progress, with humans growing smarter and more capable over time ...
The mysterious genetics of homosexuality
[A] reasonable summary is that, when it comes to male homosexuality, there is almost certainly a direct influence, although probably ...
Cancer is NOT an evolutionary atavism
A while back, two physicists, Paul Davies and Charles Lineweaver, announced their explanation for cancer with a novel theory, which ...
“Fat and jolly” genetically linked
It used to be a stereotype that being fat meant you had a happy personality. Then culture went out of ...
Harvard’s Richard Lewontin mangles population genetics review
Discover's blogger Razib Khan's dissects Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin's biologically troublesome take-down of two books on "Jewish genetics". Lewontin ...
‘Your 23andMe results are ready’
Today, I Realised That I am Going to Die (at Some Point)Huffington Post UK (blog)Yesterday I received an email from ...
Will modern eugenics remain voluntary?
Eugenics, Voluntary and OtherwiseFirst Things (blog)The Chronicle of Higher Education last week published a rather odd article on the evolution ...
Cheap embryos and the ‘commodification of children’
Dr. Ernest Zeringue sharply cuts [IVF] costs by creating a single batch of embryos from one egg donor and one sperm ...
New eugenics and the question of personal choice
Eugenics is back in the headlines. Our ability to examine and manipulate our genes is more advanced than ever. But ...
Seeing a fetus’ future ills
Philadelphia InquirerSeeing a fetus' future illsPhiladelphia InquirerConsider that the Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, took 13 years and cost ...
Genetic screening uncovers risky matches at the sperm bank
Genetic Screening Can Uncover Risky Matches at the Sperm BankMIT Technology Review (blog)Experts in assistive reproduction say the idea behind ...
Genetic screening and “toxic information”
The term “toxic knowledge” has been used to describe genetic information that individuals may regret learning, following a prenatal genetic ...
In defense of eugenics
I expect that belief in eugenics is far more prevalent than most people would comfortably wish it to be. One ...
The “junk” in your genetic trunk isn’t junk at all
The non-coding or ‘junk’ regions can help switch genes on or off which, in turn, influences whether a cell makes ...
