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.
DNA arms race? How and why China is collecting genetic data from millions of people around the world
Most of Europe was in lockdown in April 2020 when a plane arrived in the Serbian capital bearing a well-timed ...
Viewpoint — Convergence of AI and the blockchain: A new phase of human evolution or humanity’s downfall?
In a thought-provoking essay, blockchain pioneer Trent McConaghy argues that artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain are destined to converge, enabling ...
Viewpoint: Medical, financial and ethical hurdles block humanity’s dream to settle space
Companies such as United Launch Alliance and Lockheed Martin are designing infrastructure for lunar habitation. Elon Musk has claimed SpaceX will ...
Race and health: One gene variant carried mostly by people with African ancestry quadruples risk of Parkinson’s disease
A global effort to make genetic studies more diverse has led to a discovery about Parkinson's disease, a common brain ...
Obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are upending the health care system. Should we be concerned?
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are about to start raking in tens of billions of dollars a year on their new obesity drugs, ...
Did COVID vaccine mandates reduce infection rates among college students?
New research from The Ohio State University College of Medicine finds COVID-19 vaccine mandates are highly effective at reducing the ...
Wild elephants were domesticated — but not by humans. Here’s the surprising mystery of how that happened
An international team of researchers recently pointed out that similar features exist within populations of elephants, prompting the question of ...
Can AI chatbots ‘feel’?
Generative AI has made giant strides toward machine intelligence. Can machine consciousness be far behind? ...
Elon Musk says no monkeys died after Neuralink implant tests — but new information suggests a dozen monkeys were euthanized
Fresh allegations of potential securities fraud have been leveled at Elon Musk over statements he recently made regarding the deaths ...
There are now more than 1 million donor-conceived children in the US. That’s creating inequities in egg freezing and donor brokering
There is significant reproductive injustice and lack of access to fertility treatments by diverse populations. Nowhere is this more obvious ...
Video: How animals are rapidly evolving to keep up with the world humanity is destroying
Evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell-Staton says nature is rapidly changing to keep up with the world humanity has built ...
Viewpoint: US museums, universities and federal agencies still possess the remains of over 100,000 Indigenous Americans. It’s time to give them back
Museums, universities and federal agencies still possess the remains of 110,000 Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives ...
What makes an embryo an embryo? Synthetic fertilized eggs scramble conventional science
The mainstreaming of IVF, or in vitro fertilization, has familiarized new generations of people with what the earliest stages of ...
What time of day is best to exercise if you want to lose weight—and why?
If your main fitness goal is weight loss, you may want to consider the time of day you’re exercising, a ...
‘You feel like you’re out in the wilderness’: Here are the leading theories for why long COVID is so disabling
For people suffering from long COVID's often disabling symptoms, including intense fatigue, breathing troubles, cognitive issues and heart palpitations, the ...
Human kidneys grown in pig embryos? Xenotransplantation strides into the future
Scientists introduced human stem cells into pig embryos engineered to lack a kidney, stem cells then differentiated and grew into ...
Viewpoint: Why IARC—an international agency that reviews cancer threats—needs to be replaced by a science-based alternative
IARC epidemiologists claim bacon is as bad for you as plutonium, that plants are little people, and sugar-free gum will ...
Reaching transcendence: Virtual Reality (VR) works as well as LSD or psilocybin to dissolve sense of individualism
On key metrics, a VR experience elicited a response indistinguishable from subjects who took medium doses of LSD or magic ...
An embryo was grown in lab without sperm, eggs or a womb. Here’s why scientists created it
Scientists have grown an entity that closely resembles an early human embryo, without using sperm, eggs or a womb ...
2.5 million years older than Lucy: Are 6-million-year-old footprints found on Crete from an ancient human ancestor?
Scientists believe that Homo sapiens, or modern humans, evolved into our present form approximately 300,000 years ago ...
‘Closest thing to human embryos yet’: Lab-grown fertilized cells more advanced and living longer than ever
Human embryo replicas: The lab-engineered models give scientists a look at human development beyond the first week ...
Is DNA a ‘natural resource’? China is the epicenter of genetic research, but is hoarding its discoveries
Some experts have warned that this genetic hoarding could make global research cooperation more difficult – and potentially backfire on ...
Brain-computer implants restore some speaking ability to paralyzed patients
Pat Bennett takes part in a research session, using a brain-computer interface that helps translate her thoughts into speech ...
Viewpoint: Medicinal doses of psychedelics can treat PTSD, depression and other disorders. Should we legalize recreational use?
Early studies into the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics have been so promising that the Food and Drug Administration has designated ...
3-inch live worm found wiggling in woman’s brain explains mystery health symptoms
In a world first, scientists say an 8cm (3in) worm has been found alive in the brain of an Australian ...
Do opposites really attract? Partners in most successful relationships share political views, education levels, drinking habits and more
Scientists find that most partners have shared traits including political views, education levels and drinking habits ...
A gene therapy treatment for rare SMA syndrome costs $2 million dollars. What happens if it doesn’t cure the disease?
Spinal muscular atrophy, a rare inherited disorder which is the leading genetic cause of death in infancy globally ...
