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.
What did ancient Egyptians look like? Here’s a facial approximation
A lifelike facial approximation of a man who lived 30,000 years ago in what is now Egypt may offer clues ...
Anti-vaxxers based their rejectionism on a study claiming COVID shots caused excessive deaths. Now it’s been retracted
Doubts about scientific papers related to COVID-19 have been rife during the pandemic. The database of retractions of COVID studies ...
Our brains start declining in our 30s — around a decade later than we previously thought
Recent research from University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht) shows that our brain declines later than previously thought ...
Might weight-loss drugs like Ozempic encourage people to stop exercising?
In the age of Ozempic, what’s the point of working out? The idea that we exercise to get thin may ...
90 seconds: That’s how long it takes AI to predict someone’s genetic brain cancer risk
Using artificial intelligence, researchers have discovered how to screen for genetic mutations in cancerous brain tumors in under 90 seconds ...
When did the Anthropocene — the age of humankind — begin?
The epoch that extends from the last ice age, 11,700 years ago, and until today is called the Holocene. But ...
Ovaries in a dish? Lab-grown eggs are on the horizon
George Church is known for pushing the boundaries of biology. Now one of his latest projects could have enormous implications ...
‘Wandering minds’ have been critical for evolution
Our minds may have been the key to our survival. Learn the evolution and psychology of the wandering mind ...
Many animals can walk at birth. Why are human babies born with so few skills?
Baby animals can walk, stand and nurse even shortly after birth. This is absolutely impossible for human babies ...
How will we know if artificial intelligence gains true sentience?
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s LaMDA may be sentient, ...
Newest anxiety treatment? Smelling other people’s body odor
Sniffing other people's body odour might be useful in therapy for social anxiety, say Swedish researchers who have started tests ...
Video: How to walk inside your own dreams with ChatGPT
Project Electric Sheep: Stunning new ChatGPT-powered game brings your DREAMS to life and let's you live them out for real ...
Longevity seekers have second thoughts on metformin to fight aging
An antiaging crowd latched onto the diabetes drug metformin hoping it would extend their lifespan. Studies give conflicting results ...
Living through a time of pestilence
If the pandemic ought to have given us anything, it should have been a more universal empathy toward the condition ...
Video: Watch how a breastfeeding mom teaches an orangutan how to nurse
Zoe the orangutan needed help breastfeeding. Her first baby, Taavi, had to be hand-raised after she failed to nurse him and ...
In Darwinian twist, AI could go ‘Terminator’ and gain upper hand over humans. Here’s how.
Artificial intelligence could gain the upper hand over humanity and pose "catastrophic" risks under the Darwinian rules of evolution, a ...
Can ‘broken heart syndrome’ provoke heart attacks?
When it comes to preventing heart disease, managing our emotional and mental health is just as important as managing our ...
Could a vaccine rejectionist become the next US president? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announces bid for 2024 election
Robert F Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine activist and scion of one of the most famous American political families, is running ...
This four-step blueprint can help synthetic biology innovators disrupt the status quo
Synthetic biology could disrupt some of the world’s biggest industries. Here are four steps to building a ‘syn-bio’ strategy ...
At 9 months old, this girl had half her brain removed — and 15 years later, she is thriving.
People like Mora represent the upper bounds of human brain plasticity because their brains were radically altered very early in ...
Ozempic competitor: New weight-loss drug expected to get FDA approval in coming months could be even more powerful than Wegovy
Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro could outpace Ozempic as the most powerful treatment on the market. To develop it, the drug company ...
Viewpoint: How the COVID lab leak theory spread like the virus itself
Covid had just reached American shores on Feb. 9, 2020, when Newt Gingrich invited Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of ...
Jurassic Park and other pop-culture depictions got the gaping maw of Tyrannosaurus rex wrong: The dinosaur had lips that covered its long, serrated teeth
The chompers of two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs didn’t protrude outside their jaws, a new study suggests ...
What is ‘closed loop Bayesian optimization’ and how can it help us bake the perfect brownies?
A new scientific paradigm revolving around the use of algorithms is solving optimisation problems and increasing scientists’ efficiency – and ...
Taking vitamin D supplements to prevent mental illness remains a pipe dream
Despite the stream of “good news” about vitamin D, the supplement’s prospects to prevent mental health disorders in adults remain ...
Meet your newest coworker: From retail to medicine to marketing, AI workers will soon abound
Artificial intelligence is increasingly making its way across industries, changing jobs from retail to medicine to marketing ...
Brain implants of the future: Era of injectable gels on the horizon
The hard electrodes inserted into the brain to treat Parkinson’s and paralysis damage the organ’s soft tissue. A new invention ...
