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.
‘He spreads dangerous misinformation’: Kennedy Family condemns presidential candidate RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine rhetoric
Apparently, those of us who don’t think much of RFK Jr.’s ignorance about vaccines and pseudoscience often wondered if the rest of ...
American middle school math scores are the lowest they’ve been in 50 years. AI can help
Results from this year’s National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) from the U.S. Department of Education show a continued, steep ...
What happens to bad smells — do they disappear or does the world get smellier every day?
Does smell disappear? Or does our planet become more and more smelly every day? ...
Pair bonding: How wedding vows have contributed to human evolution
An evolutionary perspective on pair-bonding can help people to understand wedding vows at a deeper level, even generic vows turn ...
How hot is too hot? Record breaking temperatures across the world test human body heat limits
The hottest June ever and a record-breaking start to July should be a wake-up call. We weren’t built for this ...
Prospective planning: Are humans the only animals capable of preparing for the future?
Humans can plan for their future needs: We must choose between satisfying our current desires and postponing our gratification to ...
Viewpoint: ‘We should acknowledge that there are faith-based myths running deep in science’s canon’
Science has fundamental limitations as a way of knowing and is not the only method of approaching the unattainable truth ...
COVID air detector: ‘You can know essentially in real time, or every 5 minutes, if there is a live virus in the air’
A team of researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine has developed a proof-of-concept air ...
Viewpoint: Battling RFK, Jr.’s misinformation machine — ‘What good is a fact check from news organizations with a record of promoting ideology over truth?’
Longtime amplifier and propagator of baseless theories, beginning nearly two decades ago with his skepticism: Robert F. Kennedy Jr ...
Developing ‘revolutionary’ drugs — This company has spent a billion dollars over 25 years and has come up empty. What now?
The enormously expensive task and challenges involved in developing cutting-edge therapies: $12 billion California stem cell and gene therapy program ...
‘Like veins in a leaf, rather than branches on a tree’: Updated human origin model illuminates how Homo sapiens arose in Africa
There's a promising new model for human origins in Africa — but scientists don't quite know what to do with ...
Birth control pill approved for over-the-counter sale with no age restriction, available early next year
Federal regulators on [July 13] approved the nation’s first over-the-counter birth control pill in a landmark decision that will soon ...
Artificial intelligence regulation gets off the ground in Europe. What can we expect?
Jurisdictions joust over toxic chatbots; policymakers ponder existential risks ...
Making a new person from skin or blood cells — but no egg and sperm?’ Scientists debate ethics of ‘synthetic human reproduction’
Called in vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, it promises to someday provide a cure for many types of infertility ...
Can’t start your day without a cup of joe? Coffee’s energizing effects may be a placebo
Scientists testing coffee against plain caffeine found that plain caffeine only partially reproduces the effects of drinking a cup of ...
GM mosquitoes: Conspiracists blame Bill Gates for first US malaria cases in two decades
Conspiracy theorists say his genetically modified mosquitos are spreading the disease ...
Evidence of life on Mars? NASA may have accidentally destroyed it in the 1970s
Life may have been discovered on Mars almost 50 years ago, but it could have been unintentionally destroyed ...
What does the future of AI look like? 300 experts predict artificial intelligence landscape in 2035
Our future depends on the “good or ill intent” of the next generation as they build the knowledge ecosystem, to ...
Editing out diseases in the womb is a holy grail on the horizon — but protecting embryos from unwanted damage is proving a challenging hurdle
Scientists have discovered that the cells of early human embryos are often unable to repair damage to their DNA ...
First person to receive genetically-modified pig heart transplant died two months later. What have we learned from this experiment?
[T]he eventual heart failure in the world’s first successful transplant of a genetically-modified pig heart into a human patient ...
‘The hallucination of reality’: Where does consciousness reside — inside or outside the brain?
The hard problem of consciousness has puzzled philosophers and neuroscientists alike for decades: consciousness, the hallucination of reality, and whether ...
Viewpoint: ‘The true promise of gene-editing isn’t in pitless cherries or vitamin fortified-foods but in the vast potential for treatment and cures of human disease’
While it can be used to modify food, its greatest impact may be in eliminating the mutated genes responsible for ...
Ethical debate escalates over propriety of 14-day limit on lab-grown embryos
Embryo-like structures made using human stem cells could enable research that is not currently possible using natural embryos ...
The world is quickly getting too hot for human bodies. Can we adapt to rapid climate change?
By the time Homo erectus appeared about two million years ago, our ancestors were on their way to becoming endurance ...
Inhalable CRISPR-based treatment for cystic fibrosis, lung disease on the horizon
A nanoparticle developed by MIT chemical engineer Daniel Anderson and colleagues can deliver messenger RNA encoding CRISPR gene-editing proteins to ...
Newly-approved Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi slows mental decline — but high cost poses multi-billion dollar challenge for Medicare
The FDA has just granted traditional approval to Leqembi (lecanemab), an anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, after granting ...
In 1974, genetic engineers called for a moratorium on potentially dangerous technology. Is it time for artificial intelligence researchers to do the same?
Although 50 years apart, the debates that followed the DNA and AI letters have a key similarity: In both, a ...
