Jessica Hamzelou
‘The edge of chaos’: Why switching tasks makes our brains go haywire
Study shows that our brains exist between chaos and stability—a finding that could be used to help tweak them either ...
Jet lag and night shifts disturb our sleep cycles and molecular clocks. Could a drug one day reduce these effects?
The circadian clock sits in our brains keeps our bodies in rhythm and this helps control when we wake, eat, ...
Reducing pollution, treating cancer, boosting gut health? How genetically-modified microbes can transform our world
Microbes are ancient—they were evolving on the planet for millions of years before humans came along. So it’s no surprise ...
Next up on the gene-edited pig heart transplant list? Babies
The company eGenesis has started transplanting gene-edited pigs’ hearts into infant baboons—and humans may be next ...
‘This is simply mind-blowing’: Monkeys implanted with synthetic embryos made from stem cells
Embryos made from stem cells, rather than an egg and sperm, appear to generate a short-lived pregnancy-like response in monkeys ...
Gene editing medicine is accelerating: More than 200 people worldwide have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies
More than 200 people have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies. But at a global genome-editing summit, exciting trial results ...
‘Three-parent baby’ mitochondrial replacement therapy was developed to prevent fatal illnesses — but the the technique might not work as expected
Mitochondria are little “energy factories” that float around in the cytoplasm of our cells. While most of our DNA is ...
Could a vaccine permanently protect us from heart disease? CRISPR gene editing poised to provide healthcare solutions for most everyone
Last year, Verve Therapeutics started the first human trial of a CRISPR treatment that could benefit most people—a signal that ...
Next-gen food: Pigs, fish and other CRISPR gene edited animals will be be bigger and healthier
Of course, farmers have used selective breeding to try to make animals big, muscular, docile, and easy to rear for ...
‘A hotbed of hype and self-experimentation’: Meet the ultra-rich innovators who want to live forever
Hope, hype, and self-experimentation collided at an exclusive conference for ultra-rich investors who want to extend their lives past 100 ...
Post-mortem reproduction: Can your eggs or sperm be used after you die — and who should get to decide?
We can now use cells from dead people to create new life. But who gets to decide? This is why ...
Why sustainably-produced lab-grown meat might be a pipe dream
The first lab-grown burger cost around $330,000 to make in 2013. Prices have dropped since then, but not to the ...
Manipulating nature: Should rats implanted with human brain cells be treated differently than unaltered test rodents?
A few months after they’d been implanted, the human cells made up around a sixth of the rats’ brains and ...
Eggs can be harvested from trans men’s ovaries even after hormone replacement therapy, helping them have biological children
Ovaries contain hundreds of thousands of underdeveloped eggs, held in a kind of suspended animation. Each month, one matures and ...
Breastfeeding breakthrough: Transgender woman is first to feed her baby
A 30-year-old transgender woman has become the first officially recorded to breastfeed her baby. An experimental three-and-a-half-month treatment regimen, which included hormones, a ...
Mom was right: Teenagers’ brains can’t process what’s important and what’s not
Adults are generally pretty good at being able to tell when a situation is worthy of extra time or concentration ...
Should you get paid for your genetic data?
Your DNA determines many aspects of who you are, and an increasing number of companies are claiming they can decode ...
Unprotected sex with a new partner might affect vaginal health, microbiome
To find out if sexual activities could shape the vaginal microbiome and, potentially, women’s health, Lenka Vodstrcil at Melbourne Sexual ...
No need for ‘young blood’? Old blood can be rejuvenated using stem cells
Young blood is being trialed as a treatment for conditions like Alzheimer’s...But these studies rely on young people donating their ...
Healthy aging promoted by tweaking ‘old blood’
The effects of blood on aging were first discovered in experiments that stitched young and old mice together so that ...
WHO announces that Zika is no longer a public health emergency – it’s worse
Zika virus no longer represents a public health emergency, the World Health Organisation announced on [Nov. 18]. On the face ...
Brain implants could enhance memory and intelligence
If you could implant a device in your brain to enhance your intelligence, would you do it? [Bryan Johnson, the ...
Obese women give birth to ‘biologically older’ babies
Women who are overweight while pregnant are more likely to have babies who are biologically older than those born to ...
Everything you need to know about three-parent babies
A baby boy has been born using DNA from three people – the first ever birth resulting from a new ...
World’s first baby born from new, controversial three parent embryo technique
A five-month-old boy is the first baby to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three people... The ...
Scientists uncover our tongue’s sixth taste and why we love carbs
[C]arb cravings can be hard to resist[, but n]ow there’s evidence that carbohydrate-rich foods may elicit a unique taste too, ...
Lab’s choice of nutrients may determine sucess of IVF, babies’ health throughout their life
Here’s another layer of confusion to add to the uncertainty of going through IVF. The type of liquid a lab ...
Treatment used for wound healing may reverse menopause, restoring menstruation and fertility
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. MENOPAUSE need not be ...