Scientist
Articles written for the GLP list the source as Genetic Literacy Project. All other articles were written for the sources noted with excerpts provided by the GLP.
Meet Huda Zoghbi, pediatric neurologist working on rare diseases
Huda Zoghbi has uncovered the molecular mechanisms of normal neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration by probing the complexities of rare neurological diseases ...
New techniques could transform epigenetics research, ameliorating diseases
Epigenetics, the study of mechanisms by which genes are turned on or off without altering their genetic code or DNA ...
Casting doubt on whether our DNA can be tweaked to increase human lifespan
Estimates predict that somewhere between 15 percent and 30 percent of the variability in human lifespan is due to genetics ...
Exercise as a treatment for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s?
Researchers have long recognized that exercise sharpens certain cognitive skills. Indeed, [researcher Hiroshi] Maejima and his colleagues have found that ...
Chasing the biology underlying human intelligence
[H]uman intelligence [has increased] over time. Proposed explanations for the phenomenon, now known as the Flynn effect, include increasing education, ...
Understanding what happens when routine touching becomes agony
It shouldn’t hurt to put on socks, wash hands, or walk about, but for some people with damaged nerves, certain ...
Increase in autism linked to rising maternal obesity and diabetes
More and more children around the world are being born to obese mothers than ever before. In the United States, ...
3 reasons ALS research struggles to find treatment answers
[T]he desire to give [ALS] patients hope has often outstripped good scientific sense. “Many drugs that have gone into ALS ...
Can a skin patch thwart cocaine overdoses?
There are nicotine patches to help quit smoking, and then there’s this: patches of actual skin, genetically engineered to produce ...
Could a pill replicate the Alzheimer’s defense gained through exercise?
Mice that model a severe form of Alzheimer’s disease tend to exhibit improved memory after exercise-induced neuron production, according to ...
Viewpoint: Consumer DNA tests promise more than they can deliver
Over the past few years, many [DNA testing companies] have branched out into the realm of precision health, treading into ...
GAANTRY: USDA develops ‘gene-stacking’ solution to fungal pathogens—but will it actually work?
If climate change is the new normal, farmers in some regions of the world will have to get used to ...
Are age-related diseases the result of evolutionary tradeoffs favoring the young?
While granting human species some advantages over our primate cousins, recent genomic adaptations appear to have come at a cost ...
Does sunshine make us smarter? UV exposure boosts mouse brainpower
The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a major cause of skin cancer, but it offers some health benefits too, such ...
Using patient registries to track effectiveness of cell and gene therapy trials
Due to advances in rare-disease research and individualized cell and gene therapies, there has been a recent crop of treatments ...
What a headache: Genetic adaptation to cold weather also gave us migraines
A human genetic variant in a gene involved in sensing cold temperatures became more common when early humans migrated out of ...
Gene therapy research gets boost from parent-led crowdfunding
It’s a compelling narrative: A parent learns that his or her child has a fatal disease with no cure, and, ...
What can we learn from bacteria that eat antibiotics for fuel?
Some bacteria take antibiotic resistance a step further: they chow down on the very compounds designed to kill microbes and ...
How we can make vaccines more effective in newborns
The immune system is known for its ability to remember its response to pathogens, leading to more efficient clearance of ...
Hatchery-raised vs wild-born coho salmon: Containment sites may alter epigenome, hurting survival in the wild
[Biologist Louis Bernatchez of Quebec’s Laval University] and his colleagues set out to search for evidence of a different kind of hatchery adaptation, ...
Bee-friendly pesticides? Protein discovery could lead to less toxic neonicotinoid insecticides
[S]tudies have shown that not all the compounds are equally toxic to [honeybees], suggesting that there might be variation in ...
Decades-old immunosuppressant drug rapamycin could extend life
In the 1990s, pharmacologist Dave Sharp of the University of Texas’s Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies in San ...
Are brains of transgender people wired differently?
In recent years, US society has seen a sea change in the perception of transgender people, with celebrities such as ...
Is there a difference in the toxic effects of glyphosate versus herbicides like Roundup that include surfactants?
Glyphosate is rarely used on its own in the field. Herbicide formulations as a whole include a variety of other ...
Advances in crop microbiome research could revolutionize agriculture
Editor's note: Davide Bulgarelli is a principal investigator at the University of Dundee in the UK. His research aims at understanding the ...
Autism researchers focus on ‘retired’ line of mice with missing gene
Nearly 20 years ago, a new strain of mice debuted in a California laboratory. The mice were missing a gene ...
Hot stuff: Do human pheromones really exist?
Some companies, such as the Athena Institute, which, according to its founder, Winnifred Cutler, published its 108th consecutive ad in The Atlantic this month, ...
‘Personal omics’: Weight changes affect what’s happening in our gut, disease susceptibility
Gaining and losing weight causes extensive changes in the gut microbiota and in biomarkers related to inflammation and heart disease, ...
