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.
Does marijuana spur creativity? Long-held beliefs under scrutiny
A growing body of marijuana research is creating a clearer picture of how it affects people who use cannabis compared ...
AI-trained computers can scan eye and facial movements to recognize subtle signs of stroke
Early research efforts point to a future in which facial scans, perhaps embedded in a smartphone camera or even a ...
‘This is simply mind-blowing’: Monkeys implanted with synthetic embryos made from stem cells
Embryos made from stem cells, rather than an egg and sperm, appear to generate a short-lived pregnancy-like response in monkeys ...
Why does hair turn silver with age? Discovering the root problem of graying
A team of researchers says it has identified the root cause as trapped stem cells — and that means new ...
Brain diversity: Are Black Americans at higher risk of developing dementia? Underrepresentation in studies leads to uncertainty
In the whitewashed world of Alzheimer’s research, one scientist is on a quest to understand the diversity of brains ...
Pivotal year for gene therapy: Slew of CRISPR treatments will hit the market in 2023
Currently, there are no gene editing–based treatments on the market, but the technology continues its march toward potential FDA approval, ...
Viewpoint: Is discovering the true origins of COVID an ‘arcane sideshow’? Here’s why that argument is terribly wrong
In many ways, you can tally the impact of the coronavirus without having to know whether it jumped to humans ...
Self-domestication: Like humans and bonobos, elephants have evolved cooperative, socially beneficial behavior
Researchers argue that human evolution may resemble the process of animal domestication, where less aggressive animals are favoured ...
Making human eggs from scratch: Scientists are trying to replicate this complex chemical recipe
Gameto, a biotech startup, has developed a product called Fertilo that it hopes can improve the odds of success in ...
5 vestigial organs: How human evolution has rendered multiple parts useless
The natural selection process dictates that we keep the traits that continue to serve a purpose while the others become ...
Viewpoint: Could $40 herbal supplement Prostolaxen cure enlarged prostates — or is it just snake oil?
Dietary supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA, unless you claim that they’re a drug or that they can treat a ...
Pregnancy and COVID: Babies exposed to mild coronavirus cases in utero undergo normal brain development
The infants of mothers who had asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 infections during pregnancy showed no neurodevelopment delays compared to peers with no ...
Ancient humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Why did we settle down and start farming?
After millions of years of our predecessors and us evolving as hunter-gatherers, humans abruptly stopped roaming, settled down and started ...
Viewpoint: How US abortion pill case could could upend FDA approval of vaccines and drugs
The Supreme Court faces a decision that lays bare the threat to facts, evidence and the health of America’s patients ...
With increasing concerns about artificial intelligence accuracy, calls for regulating AI are escalating
As artificial intelligence becomes a more integral part of our lives, there are increasing concerns about its accuracy and fairness ...
Audio: Jennifer Doudna on how diseases can be permanently cured using CRISPR gene editing, reshaping the arc of evolution
In 2011, biochemist Jennifer Doudna helped discover the genetic editing tool CRISPR. Today CRISPR is actively deployed in clinical trials ...
Evolution denialism spreads in India
As part of its curriculum rationalisation exercise, the NCERT had last year announced that the chapter "Heredity and Evolution" will ...
Will AI robots ever be accorded legal rights?
[T]he robot invasion is already well under way, and the question of rights for these soon-to-be-ubiquitous artificial forms of intelligence ...
Human GMOs: Vertebrate eyes evolved after ‘horizontal gene transfer’ from another species
New research suggests some components of vertebrate vision may not have been shaped incrementally as their genes passed down family ...
Pronatalism: An emerging new eugenics movement encourages intellectual elites to have more children
Linked to the subcultures of rationalism and ‘effective altruism’ (EA), and bolstered by declining birth rates, it has been gaining ...
Bats rarely get viruses or cancer, and live extraordinarily long lives. Can that help guide human care?
While the Covid-19 pandemic exposed health risks from bats, it has also made finding out how they crush viral infections ...
Ecogenesis: Understanding the emergence of life on Earth
In Greg Fournier’s line of work — studying living systems that developed billions of years ago — outstanding questions far ...
98% of the human genome: We are finally beginning to understand the mystery of ‘dark matter’ junk DNA
Twenty years ago, an enormous scientific effort revealed that the human genome contains 20,000 protein-coding genes ...
Russia claims US is creating genetically-engineered bioweapons. What are the facts?
Russian MPs have completed a probe into Washington's military-related biological activity at laboratories throughout Ukraine on the basis of the information ...
Male-female health differences: MRI brain analysis reveals sex-based differences in weight gain
A new study...suggests that future weight loss treatments should take into account whether someone is male or female ...
Viewpoint: How birds help us better understand human infancy
To understand helpless human babies, our big brains and oddly involved dads, look to the evolution of birds not mammals ...
Wiring the brain for sex: How to correct for chemical imbalance that lowers libido
While his partner may feel ignored, a man's lack of sexual desire may be due to a chemical imbalance in ...
