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🌍️ Health Care's In Its Gene Editing Era

🌍️ Health Care's In Its Gene Editing Era

Plus: warm winters, AI regulations, and mysterious underwater sounds

Willow Beck
March 18, 2024

Welcome to the week.

Don’t miss our newest podcast conversation with returning guest, Dr. Srijan Sen.

Srijan returns this week to dive into serotonin, SRRIs, and other treatments for depression. More details below!

Now, let’s get to the news.

This week:

🦟Ancient malaria DNA
🌲Reforestation wins
🥕Plant-based Bezos
🤖 Anglo-AI
And more

Have a great week,

— Willow

This is science for people who give a shit.

Every week, we help 28,000+ humans understand and unfuck the rapidly changing world around us. It feels great, and we’d love for you to join us.

New Shit Giver Amanda says “finding solutions to climate change is, in my opinion, the most pressing issue facing our world. The sooner we can come up with real solutions and innovations that fight what damage humankind has made on our planet, the better chance we and our descendants will have of surviving.“

Couldn’t have said it any better myself, Amanda. Welcome!

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🦠 Health & Bio:

Gene editing is now being used to treat patients for myriad conditions and could be the solution to antibiotic resistance
It’s been four years since March 2020. Here’s what we’ve learned about Covid in that time (like that vaccinations reduced the risk of post-COVID cardiac complications)
If you have pets, spring might mark the time of year to get a chewable tick-prevention tablet from your vet. A similar pill may soon be available for humans
🌍️ Ancient DNA could help researchers understand the history of malaria in Europe

⚡️ Climate change:

We’re nearing the end of yet another record-breaking warm winter, and as excited as we all are for spring, it’s here too damn early
🌍️ Without stronger, decisive action on climate change, the EU faces estimated economic losses exceeding 1 trillion euros (not to mention the risks to the health and safety of many, many human beings)
🌍️ In more hopeful news, a reforestation effort in Africa has restored an area seven times the size of Manhattan in under 10 years, by getting farmers to switch from monocultures to biodiverse forest gardens
Researchers think they’ve found a way to better protect the grid from power outages caused by more intense storms

💦 Food & Water:

🌍️ Drought in southern Africa is killing crops and threatening power shortages in copper mines, to the extent that Zambia has declared a national disaster
NYC is looking to ban laundry pods as one solution to mitigate microplastic pollution
Bezos is pledging $1 billion to solve the climate impacts of food, starting with funding research into meat alternatives
The FTC launched a report on the market forces that contributed to last year’s formula crisis. Get the break down here.

👩‍💻 Beep Boop:

🌎️ The EU has passed the world’s first comprehensive AI Law — now they need regulators to help enforce it, but the salaries they’re offering aren’t competitive enough for the industry
Growing up behind a phone is “hostile to human development”
LLMs process queries in English, even when answering questions in other languages, leading to more concerns about bias
AI opens up a lot of opportunities in biological research, but like any other industry AI is infiltrating, there are risks too

🌎️ = Global news link

Last week’s most popular Action Step was learning how to reduce food waste in the restaurant industry using this guide from ReFed.

🌍️ Donate to World Central Kitchen to help feed families impacted by the conflict in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon.
Volunteer at a shelter or food pantry in your community. Find community resources nearest you using the Find Shelter tool.
🌏️ Get educated about emissions in your city or region using data from the Environmental Insights Explorer tool.
Be heard about expanding access to SNAP benefits to low-income college students.
🌎️ Invest in sustainable companies that aren’t killing the planet using Deforestation Free Funds.

🌎️ = Global Action Step

The Best Depression Treatment For You

You know you're stressed. You know you're anxious.

Do you have depression?

And do you need to know the latest in the biology of how the brain works and depression works or doesn't work and whether the gut is involved in getting meaningful help?

That's today's big question, and this conversation is a follow-up to our last couple of conversations about the brain, the gut, and depression, with returning guest, Srijan Sen.

Srijan is still the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg Professor of Depression and Neurosciences at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center.

His leading research focuses on the interactions between genes and the environment and their effect on stress, anxiety, and depression.

📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here.