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.
Trust in scientists nosedives post pandemic with deeper slide among Republicans
A new Pew Research Center survey finds the share of Americans who say science has had a mostly positive effect ...
Artificial intelligence helps researchers unpack the mystery of how life on Earth began
AI is helping chemists unpick the mysteries around the origins of life and detect signs of it on other worlds ...
Why Vitamins A and E may do more harm than good
There are many important supplements that benefit people with specific deficiencies or certain health conditions; but research shows, and experts ...
Plastic paradox: ‘Dragging a net across the ocean to capture plastics may unintentionally trap the very organisms we aim to protect’
The ever-increasing problem of plastic pollution has prompted widespread efforts to combat it through innovative clean-up technologies. These advancements, however, ...
Tracing the history of evolutionary psychology all the way back to Charles Darwin
Evolutionary psychology can be traced back to Darwin's own work. Several variants have emerged on the scene over the decades ...
Viewpoint: Trials and tribulations plague the Effective Altruism movement
The multibillion-dollar Effective Altruism movement makes rich people feel good about being rich — to hell with the bad publicity ...
‘Game changing results’: Weight-loss drug Wegovy could cut heart attacks and deaths due to cardiovascular disease
Study that supports the use of Wegovy, to cut heart attacks and deaths in obesity patients with a history of ...
First CRISPR drug: UK approves Casgevy to prevent pain from sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia
The gene-editing therapy Casgevy uses Crispr to prevent debilitating pain in patients with sickle cell disease ...
Seeking an end to cosmic loneliness: Inside the quest to find out if humans are the only intelligent life in the universe
New tools, including machine learning and AI, could help scientists look past their preconceived notions of what constitutes life ...
‘Completely uncharted territory’: First whole eye transplant successful, but patient still blind
A surgical team at NYU Langone Health in New York had performed the world’s first successful whole-eye transplant in a ...
Peanut butter toothpaste? Daily dose of trace amount of nuts could help adults overcome severe allergies
Two dozen adults safely tolerated a toothpaste with trace amounts of peanut protein in an early-stage trial ...
Ekgmowechashala mystery solved: Unique Chinese monkey-like creature was last primate to populate the Americas before humans arrived
Besides being a spelling bee stumper, Ekgmowechashala likely descended from animals in China and somehow migrated to North America ...
Viewpoint: Debunking claims that polio vaccine causes cancer
Review the anti-vaccine claims about the polio vaccine and provide the science that shows that the polio vaccine is not ...
100,000 Americans, mostly Black, are victims of sickle cell anemia. CRISPR is on the cusp of treating it
Exa-cel, a new gene therapy treatment using CRISPR technology, shows promise in treating SCD by editing the patient's stem cells ...
Video: Viewpoint: Vaccine denialist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s growing strength in presidential polls is ‘best showing for polio since Franklin Roosevelt,’ jokes Sarah Silverman
A new poll pits Kennedy, Trump, and Biden in a three-way race for the presidency — the "worst three way ...
This brain implant can translate brain waves into real-time communication
Duke scientists create brain implant — Prosthetic decodes signals from brain’s speech center to predict what sound someone is trying ...
In medical first, man paralyzed by Parkinson’s can walk after spinal implant
The implant delivers bursts of electrical signals, stimulating his spinal cord to make his leg muscles move ...
Slowing the fentanyl opioid epidemic: Accelerating research on vaccines to limit impact of heroin, cocaine and nicotine raise hopes
Research is accelerating as the nation grapples with an unprecedented drug crisis fueled chiefly by the synthetic opioid fentanyl ...
First clinical trial of CRISPR cure for HIV is encouraging — but comes with scant details
California-based biotech company Excision BioTherapeutics has shared data from the first human clinical trial of a CRISPR cure for HIV ...
Do rats have a sense of imagination?
Like humans, rats have the ability to imagine locations other than the place they're in, brain research shows ...
‘Deep theoretical crisis’: How valid is psychotherapy?
As a therapist, you need to be ready to abandon the method you know and like if it doesn’t make ...
Genetic research equity: Why researchers are sequencing genomes of 500,000 people of African ancestry
The $80 million effort will provide researchers at U.S. HBCUs and African institutions with exclusive access to the data ...
Gene therapy treatment restores hearing to five children in China. Will the results last?
After deafness treatment, Yiyi can hear her mother and dance to the music. But why is it so noisy at ...
Viewpoint: ‘Blind faith that capitalism and technology will solve the world’s problems’ — Current Affairs attacks ‘techno-optimism’
Techno-optimism is a dangerous philosophy whose adherents that market capitalism and technology will solve the world’s problems ...
Science of lie detection: Does nervousness suggest someone isn’t telling the truth?
Do you become sceptical when someone appears nervous? Could they be lying? How can we catch someone in a lie? ...
Why are there 500 different types of psychotherapy?
Treatments can vary widely and are sometimes even contradictory. But no one is making sure that the method you use ...
Can we cut cost and pain of IVF? Start-up CEO tries out own company’s alternative way to ‘mature’ human eggs in lab dish instead of inside bodies
While life expectancy is getting longer—it has been slowly rising for a hundred years—that’s not true of women’s reproductive life ...
