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.
Is late-stage cancer incurable? Drug developments turns some cancers from a death-sentence into a manageable chronic disease
Cures or long-term survival for certain types of the disease—are still stubbornly out of reach ...
25% of people who lost sense of smell and taste after COVID infection do not recover senses
Millions of Americans have been infected with COVID-19 since the pandemic of the novel coronavirus began in March 2020, and ...
Old polio vaccines can mutate into a dangerous version of the disease — but a new ‘super-engineered’ vaccine is much safer
Scientists have "super-engineered" polio vaccines to prevent them mutating into a dangerous form that can cause outbreaks and paralysis ...
Video: Everything you need to know about the evolution of the human brain, in 7 minutes
An evolutionary history of the human brain, in 7 minutes ...
‘Their prognosis has improved so much’: Majority of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer survive long-term, study shows
Most women diagnosed with early breast cancer will become long-term survivors, according to new research that finds a substantial reduction ...
Viewpoint: AI likely won’t gain full consciousness — but if it does, here’s how it would happen
Connecting artificial intelligence systems to the real world through robots and designing them using principles from evolution is the most ...
‘Half-land, half-tree lifestyle’: This 3D computer model of Lucy the Australopithecus afarensis reveals a powerful body
We may only ever have 47 of the 207 bones that made up the skeleton of this 3.18-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis specimen known ...
The EU Parliament pushed forward draft legislation positioned to be the West’s first set of comprehensive AI regulations
Advances in artificial intelligence this year have rocked the tech industry, triggering calls from politicians, consumer groups and AI executives themselves for ...
Rewriting human evolution: Technological breakthroughs have helped us decode ancient DNA. What have we learned so far?
New fossil finds and technological breakthroughs in collecting and decoding ancient DNA are re-writing the history of human evolution, often ...
Mental decline explained: What’s the difference between Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia?
The haunting reality of Alzheimer's disease and dementia is a terrifying prospect for many individuals and their families ...
Lousy sex life? Too little intimacy could be risk factor for dementia
What researchers don’t know is whether declining sexual satisfaction is causing the memory decline, vice versa, or whether the two ...
How does social media affect kids’ developing brains? US Surgeon General releases mental health advisory
Today, 95 percent of teenagers use social media, and two-thirds daily. One in 7 kids spends more than seven hours ...
Burst of creativity: Frontal lobe dementia boosts poetic and artistic talents
Frontotemporal dementia can release the creative potential of the brain’s visual areas ...
Self love: Why masturbation evolved
The behavior may help males be fertile and disease-free. But data on females are lacking ...
Viewpoint: After years of yo-yo dieting, Ozempic helped me lose 40 pounds. I’m still debating if it was worth it
Opinion: I lost 40 pounds on Ozempic. But I’m left with even more questions ...
Alcohol is good for you, alcohol is bad for you? Here’s yet another study to fuel the debate
Researchers say they may be able to explain how light drinking benefits the heart, and its main effect doesn’t stem ...
Video: From wild wolves to domesticated pets, here’s the history of dog evolution
Survival of the friendliest: How dogs evolved to be man's best friend ...
Does brain stimulation boost memory or improve focus? It depends
Analysis of more than 100 studies of non-invasive electrical brain stimulation probes whether the controversial technology works ...
Dramatic visual evidence shows how COVID decimates the lungs and causes long-term damage
To better understand the long-term impact of Covid’s assault on the lungs, The New York Times spoke with three patients ...
Two malaria vaccines are now being distributed in Africa. Here are the hurdles plaguing the lifesaving drugs
Malaria kills half a million people a year in Africa. We can prevent that — if we act fast enough ...
Viewpoint: ‘Human intelligence may be just a brief phase before machines take over’ — So is AI a form of ‘alien life’?
Human intelligence may be just a brief phase before machines take over. That may answer where the aliens are hiding ...
This 75-year-old Scottish woman doesn’t feel any pain. Could studying her genes help us understand wound healing, depression, and more?
A Scottish woman is one of only a handful of people in the world known to have a rare genetic ...
‘An ancestral form of art’: Homo naledi orchestrated elaborate funerals for their dead — but they had brains the size of a chimpanzee
A team of paleontologists believe they have found evidence of ceremonial burials dating back 240,000 years, long before our species, Homo sapiens, came ...
Anti-vax conspiracy-promoting Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr shows early strength against Joe Biden in polls
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a candidate for president supported by 1 in 5 Democratic voters in some recent polls, campaigns ...
Ticks and mosquitos are bringing Lyme disease, West Nile virus and other vectored illnesses to new places across the US
Lyme disease and West Nile virus are among the ailments that ticks and mosquitoes are spreading in more of the ...
How octopuses reprogram their brains as they move back and forth between chilly and warm water
[R]esearchers report that octopuses are able to edit genetic information to quickly resculpt those brains when confronted with changes in ...
‘I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases’: Lawyer who used AI to write a legal complaint says he wishes he researched the tool before using it
In a cringe-inducing court hearing, a lawyer who relied on A.I. to craft a motion full of made-up case law ...
