It was a late-spring House of Representatives hearing, where members of Congress and attendees hoped to learn lessons from the pandemic. Witness Marty Makary made a plea. “I want to…
Category: Genetics
Meet the beetles: Mealworms could be a food of the future
I have a special fondness for the yellow mealworm, Tenebrio molitor. As a child, I fed the mealworm stage of this beetle to my pet chameleon. As a teen, I…
GLP podcast and video: Dunning-Kruger debunked? The evil industry, noble activist myth; The real Vandana Shiva
The less informed someone is about a topic, the more likely they are to overestimate their knowledge of it. This is a cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect; it’s…
7,000+ rare diseases remain untreatable. The genetic revolution and federal research funding offers hope for cures, but vaccine hesitancy and a lack of newborn screening pose hurdles
There are an estimated 7,000 known rare diseases affecting 30 million people; for 95% of them, there are no treatment options. That dire situation is expected to gradually improve as…
Mushroom hallucinogen sales booming despite reports of serious side effects
When a hemp dispensary in this Florida city started to stock edibles with certain mushroom extracts last year, state regulators quickly ordered it to stop selling the items. The shop…
Investigating Stress Response in PTSD and Depression Through Gene Analysis
Summary: Researchers conducted an analysis of genes in nearly 575,000 brain cells from individuals with and without post-traumatic stress and major depressive disorders (PTSD and MDD), yielding new insights into…
90% adults fall short of eating their daily recommended vegetables. Could gene-edited salad greens make a difference?
A food and agriculture startup called Pairwise developed CRISPR-edited vegetables to make them more palatable. They created a breed of mustard greens (Brassica juncea) that had reduced pungency compared to…
Viewpoint: OMG, humans might suffer convulsions from consuming parts-per-trillion of glyphosate? Here’s how wild headlines advance the ideological agenda of science-rejecting advocacy groups
Scrolling through the news has become a game of “What Great Horror Did Glyphosate Wreak This Week?” Variations on “Study first to link weed killer Roundup to convulsions in animals”…
COVID-19 Super Dodgers: The Genetic Secret to Asymptomatic Infection
Summary: ertain individuals carry a unique gene variant that allows them to contract COVID-19 without displaying any symptoms. Dubbed as “super dodgers”, these individuals are more than twice as likely…
Concerned about aspartame? Beware of this other “probable carcinogen” on your plate
While aspartame’s classification as a possible carcinogen grabbed headlines, the classification of another ubiquitous chemical slid silently beneath the diet cola outrage. The Lyons, France based International Association for Research…
