Science News
Articles written for the GLP list the source as Genes and Science. All other articles were written for the sources noted with excerpts provided by the GLP.
In the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, ethical concerns abound
How do we ethically test it in people? Can people be forced to get the vaccine if they don’t want it? ...
Why haven’t we been contacted by alien civilizations? Maybe because most have extinguished themselves, as we likely will
For some reason, civilization is not a self-perpetuating state of affairs on this planet. And perhaps not on other planets, ...
Ethical pros and cons of infecting healthy volunteers in quest for COVID-19 vaccine
Instead of vaccinating hundreds to thousands of people and waiting to see if they naturally catch the virus, scientists would ...
Asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs created perfect conditions for microbial life to thrive
The massive Chicxulub crater on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula is the fingerprint of a killer, probably responsible for the destruction of ...
‘Overly simplistic’: Women may have been more than just ‘gatherers’ in ancient times, studies suggest
Sexual divisions of labor characterized ancient societies, but were not as rigidly enforced as has often been assumed, [two] new ...
‘The Idea of the Brain’: Book explores the struggle to understand the human brain
Neuroscientists love a good metaphor. Through the years, plumbing, telegraph wires and computers have all been enlisted to help explain ...
Borrowing a trick from cancer cells could be key to improving organ and limb transplants
To help rats adopt transplanted limbs as their own, researchers have harnessed a ruse that cancer cells use to hide ...
Experiments on living brain tissue unearth ‘ethical quandaries’
Live bits of brain look like any other piece of meat — pinkish, solid chunks of neural tissue. But unlike ...
Iraqi excavation rekindles debate over whether Neanderthals buried their dead
The excavation of an adult Neandertal’s partial upper-body skeleton in Iraqi Kurdistan has revived a decades-long debate over whether Neandertals intentionally buried ...
This robotic face will wince if you hit it. How does it process pain?
Sensors embedded in soft, artificial skin that can detect both a gentle touch and a painful thump have been hooked ...
Dreaming of hypoallergenic cats and how CRISPR could ‘come to the rescue’
Given that just two genes are responsible for making cats a problem for many people, it seemed like a no-brainer ...
Viewpoint: Booming stem cell market ‘conflates hype with reality’, damaging legitimate research
Stem cells sold at clinics are driving what’s thought to be a $2 billion global industry. Facebook pages announce seminars ...
‘Intrepid explorers’: Neanderthals hunted their way across thousands of miles in Europe
Neandertals were epic wanderers. These ancient hominids took a 3,000- to 4,000-kilometer hike from Eastern Europe to the Altai Mountains ...
DNA from 4 ancient children shed light on diversity of humankind’s African origins
Four ancient youngsters, one pair from around 8,000 years ago and another from about 3,000 years ago, have opened a ...
Dementia’s ‘biological weak spot’: A single mutation helped this woman evade Alzheimer’s for decades
A cruel twist of genetic fate brought Alzheimer’s disease to a sprawling Colombian family. But thanks to a second twist, ...
Dangers of CAR-T treatments linked to ‘particularily messy’ method of killing tumors
Techniques to genetically modify patient immune cells have revolutionized the fight against hard-to-treat cancers. But they can come with dangerous ...
Why infected patients should be put on multidrug cocktails to head off antibiotic tolerance and resistance
Infectious bacteria that are down but not quite dead yet may be more dangerous than previously thought. Even as one ...
Does the pill cause depression? Why its too soon to be worried
“Does the pill cause depression?” the news headline asked. Prompted by a recent study that described a link between taking birth ...
Single dose of ketamine could weaken the desire to drink beer
A single dose of ketamine may cut down problematic drinking. Taken in the right context, the hallucinogenic drug may be able ...
Can we take AI to the next level by building robots that fear for their own safety?
There might be a way, though, to give robots feelings, say neuroscientists Kingson Man and Antonio Damasio. Simply build the ...
‘Self-eating’ mitochondria may make the brain vulnerable to Lou Gehrig’s disease
A newly discovered type of mitochondrial self-destruction may make some brain cells vulnerable to ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s ...
Tree planting can help slow global warming, but it’s no panacea, climate experts say
.... There’s room to plant enough trees, albeit many, many, many trees, to counter a big chunk of the planet-warming ...
‘Game changer’ for genetic privacy: Court forces GEDmatch to open its million-person genealogy database to police scrutiny
A Florida state judge has reportedly allowed police to search the entirety of the public genealogy website GEDmatch — home ...
Clues for predicting premature birth risk may be found in mother’s immune system, microbiome
For decades, researchers and clinicians have sought ways to predict and prevent preterm birth with little progress to show for ...
Measles wreaks havoc on body’s immune system, making it susceptible to other infections, study shows
Measles wages war on cells of the immune system. Now two tallies of the carnage, described in the Nov. 1 Science and Science ...
Potential problem with lab-grown mini-brains: They’re ‘stressed-out and confused’
Brain cells grown into clumps in flasks are totally stressed-out and confused. Cells in these clumps have ambiguous identities and ...
Breast cancer drug may offer a precision treatment for aggressive prostate cancer tumors
A drug used to treat breast and ovarian cancers tied to certain genetic mutations may help combat some of the ...
How can ‘water bears’ survive in outer space? ‘Fluffy cloud’ of protein may shield tardigrade DNA
Tardigrades may partly owe their ability to survive outer space to having the molecular equivalent of cotton candy. Water bears, ...