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Controversial fetal cell transplants revived for Parkinson’s trials

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Fetal brain cell transplants fell out of favor as a potential therapy for Parkinson’s disease after mixed reviews from trials ...
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DIY fecal transplant: Taking love of the microbiome a bit too far

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Anthropologist Jeff Leach ended his last trip to Africa with a bit of self-experimentation. He gave himself a fecal transplant ...
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Personal genomics company says it will solve puzzle of Welsh origins

Genetic Literacy Project | 
A British genetics company is asking for Welsh participants to help discover the mysterious genetic origins of the famously redheaded ...
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Do mysterious ‘jumping genes’ fast track evolution?

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Genomes have a lot of moving parts. Some stretches of DNA try to assimilate and copy themselves in novel places, ...
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Intelligence genes: Elusive but real

Genetic Literacy Project | 
The question of the degree to which genes control intelligence has been so controversial that many geneticists avoid pursuing it ...
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Persistence of the massive microbiome myth

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Scientists and layman alike have long touted the estimate that microbial cells outnumber humans by 10 to 1. While that ...
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Apes R’ Us: Online misogynists wrongly hide behind the veil of ‘human nature’

Genetic Literacy Project | 
As celebrity nudes were leaked online, hackers and their supporters justified the behavior by claiming that men are hardwired to ...
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Stem cells: Stalled promises

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Fifteen years ago, stem cell therapies captivated the public’s perception of emerging medical treatments and offered the promise of replacing ...
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Advanced cancer screenings find early, slow growing cancers more often than fast aggressive ones

Genetic Literacy Project | 
As cancer screenings grow more sophisticated, the chances of finding small, slow growing cancers has increased rapidly, at great cost ...
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Live to be 100+? Extreme longevity research is futuristic privatized enterprise

Genetic Literacy Project | 
When longevity research is privately funded, what happens when the money runs dry? ...
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Evolution do-over might lead to the same place

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Scientists have often wondered if evolution happened all over again, what would life on earth look like? A Harvard biologist ...
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Call it what it is: Mitochondrial replacement does not a three-parent baby make

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Mitochandrial replacement offers hope to families debilitated by disease. But opponents stoke fear of public by dumbing down the science ...
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New IVF technique may cut multiple births, complications

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Although IVF has been used for decades and is considered very safe, the procedure does increase pregnancy risks because it ...
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Genetics of intelligence: many, many genes with tiny effects

Genetic Literacy Project | 
The explanation of the inheritance of intelligence has long been studied, but without any blockbuster results. A new study adds ...
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Who owns your DNA? It’s not who you think

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Recent court cases show the law favors hospitals and law enforcement rather than individuals when it comes to handing genomic ...
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Beyond family history: Should all women be screened for BRCA breast cancer genes?

Genetic Literacy Project | 
New evidence shows that women without a family history of breast cancer often carry disease-causing mutations in BRCA 1 and ...
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Genghis Khan and the role of power, wealth and behavior in human genetic ancestry

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan marked 16 million males as his progeny after he conquered Eurasia with his sons and brothers ...
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Genetic short cuts: Horizontal gene transfer

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Some plants rely on specialized bacterial backup to help them synthesize nutrients. Instead of evolving these traits over and over ...
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Humans’ love for simple stories and status quo make opinions intractable in face of fact

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Popular opinions about complex issues in science and technology are often held to even when facts and experts are presented ...
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Parasite practices genetic mind control to spread infection

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Toxoplasma gondii, the parasitic infection that may infect almost half the worlds human population uses some special trick to control ...
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Brain, behavior and genetics

Genetic Literacy Project | 
The link between our genetics and how we behave is the topic of much speculation, some if it highly controversial ...
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Personal genomics: Care to update your haplogroup status page?

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Personalized genomics offers the opportunity to revolutionize medical care and our understanding of disease. But many first adopters won’t wait ...
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Can open-source strategy help synbio avoid controversial fate of GMOs?

Genetic Literacy Project | 
It’s not the use of recombinant technology, but rather capitalism and greed that has stigmatized genetic engineering in our culture ...
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Beyond autopsies: Using post-mortem brain scans to understand stroke, head injury and death

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Besides their ability to lie completely still in MRI scanners, making them excellent patients, corpses have a lot of offer ...
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Ten years in, first trial treatment from California’s stem cell initiative approved

Genetic Literacy Project | 
It’s been ten years since California voters approved their state-funded stem cell initiative. Critics have charged that the initiative as ...
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Diet wars: ‘Caveman diet’ is all the rage, but ignores what our ancient ancestors really ate

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Before the advances that made agriculture possible, humans ate solely what they could hunt and gather, which varied wildly depending ...
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23andMe moves to mend fences with FDA, seeks Bloom syndrome test approval

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Seven months after the FDA forced 23andMe to stop reporting health results to its customers, the personal genomics company is ...
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More details on Google’s Baseline human health project

Genetic Literacy Project | 
Google X’s new Baseline Project was made public in July. Although widely reported that the study would only focus on ...
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