Science Literacy Project Daily Digest
Colorado rejects labels for genetically engineered food
The following is an excerpt. Colorado lawmakers Thursday rejected a proposal that would have required genetically engineered food to be ...
Race as biology in The New York Times
The following is an excerpt. Writing in The New York Times, science journalist Nicholas Wade reports on the recent discovery that ...
Do humans have the genetic ability to become mutant superheroes?
The following is an edited excerpt. [Except for a] few specific cases of extreme environmental pressures, the current form of ...
Gene therapy shows early promise for heart failure
The following is an excerpt. THURSDAY, Feb. 21 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to treating heart failure, the ultimate hope ...
Misguided nostalgia for our paleo past
The following is an edited excerpt. It's hard to escape the recurring conviction that somewhere, somehow, things have gone wrong ...
Testing everyone for everything: The problems with genetic screening
The following is an edited excerpt. New techniques of DNA sequencing make it possible to test a single sample to determine carrier ...
Meat DNA test isn’t workable onlarge scale
The following is an excerpt. The horse-meat scandal in the U.K. and Ireland has forced suppliers, processors and retailers to ...
Farm virus ‘can infect wild animals’
The following is an excerpt. A livestock virus sweeping through British sheep flocks and cattle herds has infected wild deer, ...
Developing countries plant most GM crops
The following is an excerpt. Developing countries grew more hectares of GM crops last year than industrialised countries but the ...
AquaBounty confident of GM salmon approval despite FDA delay
The following is an excerpt. AquaBounty Technologies - which has already spent years waiting for the FDA to decide whether ...
Monsanto likely to score Supreme Court win with far-reaching benefits for corporate farming
The following is an excerpt. On Feb. 19, 2013, the Supreme Court heard yet another Monsanto case. (And yet again, ...
GM crops have a role in sustainable agriculture
The following is an editorial summary. Dr. Jeffrey C. Silvertooth, associate dean of Education for Economic Development and Extension in ...
Organic tomatoes accumulate more vitamin C, sugars
The following is an excerpt. Tomatoes grown on organic farms accumulate higher concentrations of sugars, vitamin C and compounds associated ...
Supreme court defends Monsanto’s patent on soybean
The following is an excerpt. WASHINGTON — A freewheeling and almost entirely one-sided argument at the Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that ...
Record-setting 170.3 million hectares of biotech crops grown globally in 2012
The following is an excerpt. Developing countries accounted for the first time last year for more than half the global ...
We broke the tomato, and we’re using science to fix it
The following is an edited excerpt. Thanks to decades of breeding, the modern agricultural tomato has a lot of properties ...
Nutrigenomics: There is no universal healthy diet
The ubiquitous Food Pyramid (and newcomer MyPlate) offer the same dietary recommendations for everyone above two years of age, including ...
Can culture protect genetics from misuse?
The following is an excerpt. In the past, good science has been used for unethical purposes, like eugenics. The concept ...
Patenting genes could jeopardize future discoveries
The following is an excerpt. Already about 4,000 of the 22, 000 human genes have U.S. patents, but Myriad Genetics ...
Bigfoot DNA under the microscope; Controversy brews
The following is an edited excerpt. The question of if Bigfoot exists has graduated from mysterious footprints and fuzzy images ...
New guidelines on testing kids’ DNA
When and how should parents have their children genetically tested? Ricki Lewis gives a Cliff’s Notes version of the new ...
DNA could bring justice at last
The following is an excerpt. A year-old effort in Ohio to perform DNA testing on thousands of neglected evidence kits ...
Telomeres predict susceptibility to the common cold
The following is an edited excerpt. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have identified a biological marker in the immune system ...
DNA number-crunchers use homegrown software
The following is an edited excerpt. Today, multiple startups — including DNAnexus and Spiral Genetics — are taking the genomics ...
Designing life: The ethics of engineering babies
The following is an excerpt. The increasing power and accessibility of genetic technology may one day give parents the option of modifying ...
‘Language gene’ more active in young girls
The following is an excerpt. Despite recent progress toward sexual equality, it's still a man's world in many ways. But ...
Predicting evolution in bacteria
The following is an excerpt. A new study found that similar, or even identical, mutations can occur during diversification in ...
