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.
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, ...
Gay genes identified? Research met with ‘severe criticism’
Scanning the genomes of 1,077 homosexual men and 1,231 heterosexual men, researchers identified several genetic regions with multiple single nucleotide ...
Fighting infectious diseases with immunotherapy on ‘cusp of commercialization’
Immunotherapy, which involves adapting immune cells to destroy specific cellular targets, has made a name for itself treating cancer. But ...
Getting behind the genetics of high-altitude adjustments
People who both travel to and live at high altitudes typically cope with lower oxygen levels by increasing red blood ...
100 billion neurons make up our brain—how does it all work?
[Editor's note: Sara Linker and Tracy Bedrosian are postdoctoral research fellows in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute for ...
Life-forming water droplets could have jump-started early evolution
Reactions in tiny droplets of water may have given rise to some of the molecules essential for the origin of ...
Seeking human consciousness at the cellular level
To define human consciousness at the neuronal level is among the most difficult of tasks for neuroscience. Still, researchers have ...
