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.
World Health Organization and pseudoscience: Foremost global health authority promotes homeopathy and ‘rhythmical embrocations’
In trying to ensure everyone has access to healthcare, the WHO promotes homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, and rhythmical embrocations ...
Is ADHD a genetic condition, illness, natural neurodiversity of humanity, or ‘super power’? People with ADHD weigh in
ADHD is highly hereditary and scientists are examining other risk factors, including brain injuries and exposure to toxins such as ...
Researchers expanded lifespan of yeast by 80% with a simple genetic tweak. Could this work in humans too?
Human lifespans have increased throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, but those increases are slowing down ...
Eugenics exists today — and it’s a movement of the left and the right
Eugenics declined after Nazi Germany collapsed in 1945 but did not disappear. Instead, it changed priorities ...
Viewpoint: ‘This advance will increase productivity but also supercharge dislocation’ — How AI could destabilize democracy
The field of technology is convulsed by a debate about whether we have reached the Age of AGI...in which technology ...
Is it possible to read minds with brain scans?
Like Dumbledore’s wand, a scan can pull long strings of stories straight out of a person’s brain — but only ...
Precision medicine and pharmacogenetics: Here’s why certain drugs work better for some people than others
UCSF soon will start a genetic testing program for patients, believed to be the first of its kind in California ...
Could there be health benefits to delaying or preventing menopause through medical intervention?
The new science of the menopause: The 'change' is a turning point in women's lives that we still don't fully ...
How blinking contributed to human evolution
Researchers investigated the reasons behind the mudskipper’s blinking behavior by considering the roles that blinking plays in humans ...
This company adopted AI. Here’s what happened to its human workers
Companies like OpenAI and Google have unveiled new Artificial Intelligence systems with incredible capabilities ...
Slowing the advance of Alzheimer’s: Lilly’s donanemab joins lecanemab as drugs shown to limit beta amyloid plaque buildup in brains
We could be entering the era of Alzheimer's treatments, after the second drug in under a year has been shown ...
Human Genome Project was completed 20 years ago. Here’s how it has revolutionized science
For the 20-year anniversary of this historic event, we took a look back at the Human Genome Project and its impact ...
AI medical assistants? ChatGPT answers patient questions with more empathy than human doctors
There has been widespread speculation about how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) assistants like ChatGPT could be used in medicine. ...
The Fighting Hypothesis: An evolutionary explanation for fewer lefthanders — and why their share of the population could increase
A violent theory explains why most people are right-handed: Left-handed humans were likelier to get stabbed in the heart ...
Human age limit: Are supercentenarians simply statistical outliers?
For researcher Jean-Marie Robine, each supercentenarian is a crucial datapoint in the quest to answer a big question: Is there ...
30% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes: Mediterranean diet of vegetables, fruits, olive oil, fish, and nuts does work
Following a Mediterranean diet lowers the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes more than previously thought, a new study says. ...
‘Like the passenger manifest of Noah’s Ark’: Zoonomia Project reveals evolutionary links among humans and 240 other mammals
Despite decades of advancements in genomics, we still don’t know what most of our DNA does. But an ambitious international ...
Would you donate your DNA to solve crimes? Nonprofit DNA Justice Foundation aims to rewrite detective work
A nonprofit wants your DNA data to solve crimes: Privately run genealogy databases have become a crucial tool for police ...
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 ...
