Atlantic
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.
Anonymous no more: AncestryDNA test reveals identity of woman’s stem cell donor
In 2017, Holly Becker took an AncestryDNA test, and the results, she would only later learn, exactly matched those of ...
‘Utterly magical’: This ‘two-step dance’ may explain the origins of life
Go back far enough in time, before animals and plants and even bacteria existed, and you’d find that the precursor ...
Can we cure baldness with stem cell-based ‘hair farms’?
The physiology of balding has long vexed even the most entrepreneurial of scientists. Despite a rare confluence of commercial forces ...
10 years ago, the Human Brain Project promised to simulate a human brain. What went wrong?
On July 22, 2009, the neuroscientist Henry Markram walked onstage at the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford, England, and told the ...
Can’t lose weight? You may be able to blame this ‘cruel’ metabolic mechanism
In a study of former contestants on a season of the weight-loss reality show The Biggest Loser, scientists found that ...
Acne’s Wonder Drug Is a Mental-Health Puzzle
In 2002, a family filed a lawsuit alleging that an acne drug made their teenage son suicidal. Accutane, a since-discontinued ...
Why is it so difficult to figure out if coffee, wine, eggs and other foods are good for us or not?
Do you know whether eggs are good for you? What about coffee, red wine, or chocolate? Most people probably have ...
Video: Cryogenics could help people ‘cheat death’. But will those bodies ever be thawed?
Until the day he died, in 2011, Robert Ettinger hoped humanity would figure out a way to cheat death. Today, ...
FDA regulatory dilemma: Are fecal transplants drugs, human tissue, or something new?
For the past several years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been trying to figure out how to regulate ...
Are eggs good or bad for you? Why science can’t make up its mind about our favorite foods
Do you know whether eggs are good for you? What about coffee, red wine, or chocolate? Most people probably have ...
Is it time for us to stop obsessing over extending the human life span?
In 2019, more people than ever before get to see their grandkids grow up. They get to enjoy a lengthy ...
How consumer genetic testing is ending paternal secrecy—for better or worse
When Nara Milanich wrote Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father—a history of the scientific, legal, and social conceptions of ...
Women are more likely to get autoimmune diseases. Is the placenta to blame?
In the United States alone, women represent 80 percent of all cases of autoimmune disease. ... Some scientists now think ...
Legalizing pot won’t slow the opioid epidemic, study suggests
Nearly five years ago, a team of researchers performing a study on medical cannabis came to a startling conclusion: The ...
Harnessing biological clocks to boost fight against disease, parasites
[Evolutionary parasitologist Sarah] Reece and other scientists are exploring an idea that is making waves in biology: If the body ...
‘Illogical and inappropriate’: How anti-vaxxers use 23andMe genetic tests to avoid vaccines
San Francisco’s city attorney subpoenaed a doctor accused of giving illegal medical exemptions from vaccination, based on “two 30-minute visits ...
How the right diet could slow cancer growth through ‘metabolic therapy’
Doctors are starting to think more about specific nutrients that feed tumor cells. That is, how what we eat affects ...
This funny-looking helmet could treat depression by ‘rewiring’ the brain
[Recent] weeks have been frenetic for Bre Hushaw, who is now known to millions of people as the girl in ...
‘Stranger than doctors could have imagined’: Boy born without one type of brain cells
Even before he was born, it was clear that the boy’s brain was unusual—so much so that his expecting parents ...
‘Evolution in action’: How did this common gut bacteria turn lethal?
For three decades, the deadly bacteria sat in cold storage. Normally, Enterococcus faecalis lives harmlessly in the human gut. One particular strain, ...
High production costs, regulation: Obstacles keeping lab-grown meat off our plates
The thought I had when the $100 chicken nugget hit my expectant tongue was the one cartoon villains have when ...
DNA testing uncovers fertility doctor’s decades-old dark secret
The first Facebook message arrived when Heather Woock was packing for vacation, in August 2017. It was from a stranger claiming to ...
Viewpoint: Autism research is leaving girls behind
Evidence that clinicians are missing girls with autism has been building for years. Because autistic girls tend to exhibit different traits than ...
Huntington’s risk spawns niche IVF market for people who don’t want a diagnosis
When Jennifer Leyton was going through IVF, her doctors would tell her very little. They turned off the ultrasound screen ...
Is there such a thing as an anti-Alzheimer’s diet?
By 2050, an estimated 15 million people in America will have Alzheimer’s—the equivalent of the combined populations of New York ...
DNA of the dead: Genetic testing companies offering to use envelopes licked by the deceased
In the past year, genealogists have been abuzz about the possibility of getting DNA out of old stamps and envelopes ...
Why your dog really can tell if you are sick
I was sick last week, and as [my Chihuahua] Midge was glued to my side, friends told me about their ...
Why bleak, frightening dreams may make us better people
What are dreams for? A handful of theories predominate. Sigmund Freud famously contended that they reveal hidden truths and wishes. More recent ...
