Genetic Literacy Project
Articles written specifically for the GLP or the articles that are reposted from other sources (sometimes in modified form) with permission list the source as Genetic Literacy Project. Excerpted articles list the original media outlet as the source. Excerpts are posted under guidelines for Fair Use and Creative Commons for educational nonprofits (501c3). The GLP’s Fair Use policy for posting excerpts and using images is explained here.
Seed treatment overload? Are there unintended consequences from a popular practice?
For the first time in nearly a decade, Dan Hesterberg poured a few bags of untreated corn seed into his ...
Gene-edited crops made in Latin America, for Latin American needs
In recent years, precision biotechnologies have appeared on the Latin American horizon, introducing new ways to modify genomes affordably easily ...
Our prowess in sports has deep roots in evolution
The coming Olympics will showcase some of the most extraordinary human feats of strength, speed, and agility. As an archaeologist ...
High on prehistoric life: When did humans begin experimenting with mind-altering drugs and alcohol?
Humans constantly alter the world. We fire fields, turn forests into farms, and breed plants and animals. But humans don’t ...
Podcast: The COVID genetic sequencing revolution; Ban human gene editing? Brainless slime redefines cognition
For all the ills it brought, the COVID-19 pandemic may have helped revolutionize genetic sequencing. Human gene editing is fraught ...
Viewpoint: How the anti-GMO movement devolved from dangerous to irksome to irrelevant
Introduced in the 1990s, crops genetically engineered (GE) to withstand exposure to the weed killer glyphosate (Roundup) were a game-changer ...
You don’t have to be a COVID vaccine rejectionist to want to fully understand the nonspecific effects (NSE) of vaccines
The world’s attention is presently focused on the mRNA vaccines, which may turn out to be the most revolutionary vaccines ...
Trash transformation: Here’s how researchers are turning plastic waste into vanilla flavoring
We have two major problems. Vanilla is mostly produced in a narrow set of unstable economies and the supply chains ...
Epstein-Barr virus link? Tantalizing clues suggest EBV potentially triggers COVID long-haul symptoms
COVID-19 has already broken all the rules. Since when does a virus make people lose their sense of taste and ...
Viewpoint: How COVID has altered the future of US agriculture and the role of biotechnology
The past year has been a doozy. Being locked up for a year and watching half a million Americans die ...
GLP Podcast: Animal gene editing moves ahead in Russia; Biotech eliminates flavorless produce; Edible cholera vaccine coming soon?
Russia wants to produce allergen-free milk using animal gene editing. How much progress have they made? If you're bored with ...
Re-examining 10 science-challenged ‘studies’ suggesting GMOs are harmful
The blog "10 Scientific Studies Proving GMOs Can Be Harmful To Human Health" is now a fixture on cyberspace. A ...
It affects 50 million Americans, and for now it’s incurable. Here’s what we know about the ear ringing disorder tinnitus — and its possible links to COVID-19 and vaccines
This past March, the CEO and founder of the Texas Roadhouse steakhouse chain, Kent Taylor, committed suicide. According to family ...
Are COVID vaccines effective and safe for children? An expert weighs in
The Food and Drug Administration expanded emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to include adolescents 12 to 15 years ...
Lab-grown meat promises to cut water and land use by more than 96%. Why are US regulators dragging their feet in approving this ‘sustainable innovation’?
Future Meat Technologies announced [recently] that it can now produce 1,100 pounds of meat daily from animal cells grown in industrial-scale ...
‘Grizzled level-headedness’: As we age, we have fewer but more satisfying social contacts and are emotionally happier
When we are young, our skills tend to improve with age and experience. But once we are well into adulthood, ...
How Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and anti-vaxxers misrepresent the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to scare people about COVID shot ‘dangers’
Convincing a parent that vaccines won't harm their children can be a near-possible task these days. As pediatric infectious disease ...
Viewpoint: Here’s why activist environmentalists’ promotion of a ‘binary organic vs conventional/good vs evil dichotomy’ is bad for sustainable agriculture
Due to successful fear-based marketing campaigns, the demand for organic food in many affluent countries is rising far faster than ...
GLP Podcast: ‘It’s banned in Europe’ fallacy, debunked; Conversation’s bad glyphosate article; Fighting pregnancy stress
If a pesticide is banned in Europe, does that make it dangerous? Nope. Typically an excellent source of science commentary, ...
Organic pesticide copper sulfate—unlike glyphosate—is a carcinogen, kills beneficial insects, decimates soil, pollutes water. It also works. Here are political and science reasons why regulators give it a free pass
Europe is currently in a frenzy trying to drum up enough support to dramatically rollback approvals of targeted synthetic pesticides, ...
Is Prevagen the ‘silver bullet’ supplement to treat Alzheimer’s disease? Distinguishing hope from hype in the battle against cognitive decline
The avalanche of TV ads for Prevagen that coincided with my reaching Medicare age has inspired me to investigate what’s ...
Viewpoint: This 11,000 page European Union report should end the debate over the ‘dangers’ posed by glyphosate weedkiller
Glyphosate is a weed killer widely used by the agricultural industry and also available for consumer use in products like ...
How did Taiwan go from fortress impregnable to Asia’s COVID hotspot?
In September 2020, I arrived in Taiwan on a flight from New York. I had read much about the border ...
Organic vs. conventional farming: Which has lower environmental impacts?
A Swedish Food Agency report compared environmental impacts of conventional farming against those of organic farming ...
Saving our soil: 4 new microbial technologies that keep soil healthy and us fed
Soil microbes are hard to see and understand, yet we know that they have a significant impact on plant health, ...
GLP Podcast: ‘Lefty’ anti-GMO groups embrace lab-leak story; Organic nutrition myths; CRISPR treats crippling disease
Anti-GMO groups have hitched their wagons to the COVID lab-leak hypothesis to keep their flagging agenda alive. Organic produce is ...
What our embattled world looks like through the ‘eyes’ of SARS-CoV-2
I’m tired of writing about COVID from a geneticist’s point of view, so I thought I’d let a virus speak ...
How genetic engineering will help make fishing more sustainable
After an arduous process that took more than 25 years from time of conception to commercialization, the GMO salmon was ...
