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.
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 ...
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 ...
