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.
Genetically-modified pig kidney transplants into live patients may be next in wake of successful transplants into brain-dead patients
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham published a peer-reviewed study showing that modified pig kidneys performed complex life-sustaining ...
What explains Homo sapiens’ huge brains? Ancient climate change played a role
Climate change may have contributed to the increase in the brain size of human ancestors, a new study suggests ...
Wegovy’s surprising side effect? Lowered risk of stroke and heart attacks
Wegovy, a weight-loss drug from Novo Nordisk, also helps prevent heart attacks and stroke in people at high risk, according ...
Viewpoint: Dr. AI? Artificial intelligence on a path to diagnose conditions and prescribe treatments directly to a patient without a physician
The inevitable question isn’t so much if but when these artificial intelligence devices can step into the shoes of doctors ...
Viewpoint: Bringing the mammoth back — Is it time to slow down de-extinction mania?
De-extinction is the science of restoring lost species and it has been in the news, sporadically, for decades ...
Podcast: DNA cancer screening tests are cheap — so why are so few people taking them?
Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. Tests for genetic risk factors are inexpensive, and yet many ...
ChatGPT has just had a major update. What can it do now?
OpenAI just released an updated version of its text-generating artificial intelligence program. Here’s how GPT-4 improves on its predecessor ...
Infographic: Tree of Sex — Cataloging wild ways nature reproduces, from sex-changing fish to asexual lizards
From sex-changing fish to asexual lizards, these and many more species will be captured in a new sex database ...
Henrietta Lacks’ family reaches undisclosed settlement with ThermoFisher, ending 70-year long battle for compensation after using her cancer cells without permission
Descendants of Henrietta Lacks announced a lawsuit in October 2021 accusing Thermo Fisher Scientific of profiting from cancer cells that ...
Evolution of humor: Smiles are silent — so why do we hear laughter?
Laughter: Auditory signals were probably more effective in communicating feelings of mutual vulnerability during play ...
mRNA technology revolution: Battling sickle cell, aging and other tough-to-tackle diseases will soon be easier and cheaper
A technique for delivering mRNAs to blood stem cells should enable better and cheaper treatments for conditions from sickle cell ...
DNA-solved cold cases: How effective has forensic genetic genealogy been over the years?
The April 2018 arrest of Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer, is often considered the birth of forensic genetic genealogy ...
Viewpoint: When it comes to the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we need to separate valid concerns from unfounded fears
Questioning how humans want to relate to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the coming decades need not be muddled together with ...
Do energy drinks and caffeinated sodas provide the same energy jolt as coffee?
Scientists testing coffee against plain caffeine found that plain caffeine only partially reproduces the effects of drinking a cup of ...
‘It ages the brain by a decade’: Long COVID symptoms including extreme fatigue and brain fog take severe health toll
Scientists tested the cognitive function of more than 3,000 participants and found those with longer-lasting Covid symptoms had the strongest ...
Viewpoint: How did science become a messy jumble of politics?
Mucking around in the messy business of political compromises and calculations puts scientists at a distance from what they really ...
Searching for answers: Why asking questions make us uniquely human
Evolution of propositional speech: Human self-consciousness is about generating justification systems for one's self and others ...
Here’s why ChaptGPT and other AI models may not always improve over time
AI Deterioration: More training and more data can have unintended consequences for machine-learning models such as GPT-4 ...
‘Effectively banned’: Florida’s GOP-lead legislature battles with College Board after voting to strip sections on gender fluidity and sexual orientation from AP Psychology curriculum
The nonprofit said it would not remove a section on gender and sexual orientation, as Florida had requested, and advised ...
Cute canine head tilt: What are dogs thinking?
Canine behavior: research suggests the animals might cock their furry noggins when processing familiar words ...
Could we live longer with transfusions of ‘young blood’? It’s worked on mice
Old mice live longer thanks to young blood: Duke University scientists found that their procedure slows down ageing at the ...
‘Third human lineage’: Previously unknown human ancestor unearthed in China provokes speculation
In East China, specifically at the site called Hualongdong, scientists conducted an excavation and discovered fossils pointing to a possible ...
GOP House adds dozens of riders to spending bills that limit gender-affirming care, marriage equality and other LGBTQ+ rights, but Senate Dems likely to strip out measures
House Republicans have embedded at least 45 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions into must-pass funding bills — many of which would weaken discrimination ...
Viewpoint: ‘Acupuncture pseudoscience’ — Washington Post propagates alternative medicine
Pseudoscience, how to exploit the vulnerabilities in evidence-based medicine, and how effective propaganda can be, even against professionals ...
Is the Oppenheimer movie accurate? Expert breaks down science of box office hit
Oppenheimer won’t bomb in the box office, but despite its director’s best efforts, the science in the film is a ...
Viewpoint: We still don’t know where COVID truly came from. Should we be concerned?
Ongoing mystery: We still don’t know how the pandemic started. Here's what we do know — and why it matters ...
‘Superman syndrome’: What happens if you have an extra Y chromosome?
The superman syndrome (not related to the superhero named Superman) is a disorder in which an individual has an extra ...
