Reprogenetic News Roundup #10
Use of reprotech by gays in Taiwan & Scandinavia, accelerating human evolution, top 10 discoveries from ancient DNA in 2023, Russia's abortion culture, Nietzsche & biopolitics...
Everyone at the Genetic Choice Project wishes you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year! Coincidentally, we have launched our account on twitter.com: please follow us and share our news to inform and stoke debate on repro/genetics!
Highlights from this week’s edition:
Repro/genetics
Taiwanese gay fathers’ transnational use of reprotech for sex selection
IVF, the “queer baby boom,” and race in Scandinavia
“A brief defense of novel embryo selection strategies” (Parrhesia)
Genetic Studies
Newsweek on accelerating human evolution
“Recent cognitive evolution in West Africa” (Peter Frost)
“Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2023” (John Hawks)
Genetics of depression, gaming, alcohol (Mail Online), brain development, type 2 diabetes and male infertility, diabetic kidney disease, breast cancer, Parkison’s disease, prurigo nodularis, age-related macular degeneration, autism
Further Learning
Michele Rivkin-Fish, Unmaking Russia’s Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics (Vanderbilt University Press)
Podcast: Marina García-Granero on Nietzsche, Züchtung, Biopolitics, Race, and the Übermensch (The Dissenter)
Study on the evolving landscape of global regulations on genome-edited crops
Study on use of animal biotech to mitigate biodiversity loss
Repro/genetics
“Gendering the beginning of life: Taiwanese gay fathers’ navigation of preimplantation genetic diagnosis-assisted sex selection in transnational third-party reproduction” (Sociology of Health & Illness)
The article discusses use of IVF and preimplantation genetic diagnosis by Taiwanese gay fathers to choose the sex of their child.
Taiwanese are able to use overseas services to get around the outlawing of sex selection.
Selection of sons is motivated by factors such as desire for family continuity or similarity to the father.
“Donors we choose: race, nation and the biopolitics of (queer) assisted reproduction in Scandinavia” (BioSocieties)
Scandinavian nations have provided state-funded assisted reproduction with donated gametes for lesbian couples and single women since the 2000s, leading to a “queer baby boom.”
In Denmark, around 10% of all babies are now conceived using fertility treatments. The country hosts one of the world’s largest sperm banks and is an international hub for fertility travel. Danish donor sperm is available online and sold to clinics and people around the world.
While Nordic governments support women in conceiving, men (gay couples and single fathers) resort to costly surrogacy services.
Donor anonymity remains legal in Denmark, while Sweden and Norway prohibit anonymous donations.
Denmark is the most liberal in providing choice of gametes, whereas in Sweden law stipulates clinical staff must decide on the best donor.
Prospective mothers frequently choose sperm donors of the same race so their children look more like themselves, their partner, and/or their family.
Karin, a Danish single mother, said: “I chose a donor with blond hair and blue eyes, so the child will look like me.”
Birgitte, a lesbian mother, said: “I want the child to look like me, so I chose a donor with blond hair and blue eyes, because that is what the children in my family look like.”
Rose, a Danish mother in a lesbian family, said: “I want the child to look like my wife. So we chose a donor that resembles her.”
Lili, a solo mother, said: “I always imagined my life partner to be tall and blond, so I choose a tall, blond donor.”
Interviewed non-white prospective parents were often disappointed at the lack of non-white sperm on offer. Shirin and Sanaaz, an ethnic Persian lesbian couple, were not asked about their background by their fertility clinic: “They did not ask. We got what they offered.” As a result, their child is more light-skinned than they are. Sanaaz said: “In many ways I am grateful that our son is light skinned because this is a racist country. He might pass [as Swedish] more than we do.”
Several non-white interviewees reported lack of variety of non-white sperm, which often did not match their racial background. Non-white prospective parents in Sweden felt pushed to go to Denmark or find private donors to find ethnically matching sperm.
More on repro/genetics:
“Year ender 2023: Expert explains use of artificial intelligence in fertility treatment” (News Nine, India)
“Role of IVF in preventing passing on these genetic disorders to your offspring” (India Times)
“Dr. Saraogi emphasizes Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT), a revolutionary technique for a successful IVF and healthy pregnancy” (Deccan Herald, India)
“Why pre-implantation genetic testing is necessary for infertility procedures” (MD Today, Korea)
Genetic Studies
“Are humans still evolving? ‘Maybe more rapidly than ever,’ says scientist” (Newsweek)
There is now “considerable agreement” among scientists that evolution is still affecting our species. While culture and technological innovations are the main drivers of adaptation for modern humans, these have not replaced biological change.
“I don’t think [the question of whether humans are still evolving] is fully appreciated by the general public,” said Michael Granatosky, an evolutionary biomechanist at the New York Institute of Technology. “Perceptions of evolution tout the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’, which automatically recalls epic battles between fighting individuals vying for a mate, or a ragtag bunch of animals surviving a cataclysmic event beyond all odds. With these images, it is tempting to assume modern populations are no longer under selective pressures. However, evolution simply means a change in a population’s gene pool over successive generations. With this broader definition, I do not believe there is considerable debate among evolutionary biologists that humans are still evolving.”
From a genetic perspective, evolution is defined as a change in the frequency of certain genes through time, according to Jason Hodgson, an anthropologist and evolutionary geneticist at Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom.
Populations evolve in two primary ways: genetic drift and natural selection.
Genetic drift refers to random fluctuations in the frequencies of certain genes between generations in populations. The strength of drift is stronger in smaller populations. Genetic drift continues to change the frequency of alleles—different versions, or variants, of a given gene—as it does in all biological populations.
“The census size of humans has now surpassed 8 billion people. In a population this size, genetic drift should be almost negligible. However, in reality humans are subdivided into much smaller groups, within which people are more likely to choose their mates,” Hodgson said. “This means that in practice evolution occurs in much smaller groups, and genetic drift does still operate.”
Natural selection occurs when a genetic variant provides a reproductive advantage to individuals that carry it. Selection pressures are often very different in modern societies than in prehistoric societies.
“In terms of pressures, several things are happening. For one thing, the pressures that used to drive our evolution in hunter-gatherer societies—resistance to disease and parasites, strength to defend yourself from lions or else kill someone from a rival tribe, or kill someone over a woman (traditionally, one of the leading causes of murder in hunter-gatherer societies)—have largely been removed. Basically, the things that used to cull us from the population largely aren't operating,” said Nick Longrich, a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. “You might think this would end natural selection, but instead it does two things. One is that it alters the direction of selection: if selection isn’t operating on these things, it increasingly operates on other things, or might select against features that were once useful adaptations.”
“Not all evolutionary change is to do with things like death from disease, or risks faced from a harsh environment,” Hodgson said. “Anything that creates variation in birth rates among groups, so long as there are differences in allele frequencies among those groups, will create evolutionary change. Because allele frequencies vary among human groups, any difference in reproductive rate among those groups will cause evolution if we are considering the human species as a whole. It is my belief that cultural variation with respect to things like preference for large families or small families will drive much of the evolution of humans in the near future. Lots of the evolution we see on a species-wide scale will be driven by demographic differences among populations that happen to correlate with differences in gene frequencies among those populations. Genes that are common in populations that are expanding will increase in frequency, and genes that are common in populations that are contracting will decrease in frequency.”
There are several notable examples of evolution among modern humans in our relatively recent history. Longrich said: “Humans are evolving rapidly—maybe more rapidly than we’ve ever been evolving before.” For example, “our brain size is evolving—[they] have actually become smaller over the past 10,000 years since we started living in civilization. Brains seem to be smaller now than even in Greek or Roman times.”
Many recent adaptations are observable in particular populations: some populations (notably those of European descent) have developed lactose tolerance into adulthood, skin color has changed as humans moved into new climates, and resistance to various diseases has emerged as a result of plagues like the Black Death and smallpox.
“The most recent example of clear natural selection in humans is perhaps selection for resistance to vivax malaria in Madagascar,” Hodgson said. “We can estimate that having resistance to vivax malaria results in about 7% greater reproductive success. [The selection] is very likely to be ongoing since medical care is highly limited in much of Madagascar.”
The recent COVID pandemic may also have resulted in evolutionary pressures on our species. “During the pandemic, we learned that there is natural variation as to how individuals responded to infection,” Granatosky said. “Such variation serves as the basis for evolution to act. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the COVID-19 pandemic was its global nature. Rarely do such events affect an entire species so dramatically.”
To have an effect, the virus does not need to kill people, it just needs to affect their long-term reproductive output. “We’ve definitely evolved in 2020-2023,” Longerich said. “There are a lot of negative consequences associated with non-lethal infections—fatigue, depression, brain fog, etcetera, and currently it seems like the virus is just going to keep circulating indefinitely, which increases the odds that sooner or later people get an adverse reaction. We probably won't know the effects for another 50 years, but people with an innate resistance to the virus are at a distinct advantage relative to everyone else, and people whose genes make them vulnerable are at a disadvantage, and it’s hit pretty much every person on the planet. I don’t think it will radically reshape us as a species, but I’d be surprised if it doesn’t leave a lasting imprint on our genetic diversity that will be detectable for generations.”
“Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2023” (John Hawks)
The post outlines recent breakthroughs in the study of ancient human DNA, including on identifying genetic kin in ancient samples, genes responsible for smell in Neanderthals and Denisovans, and selection for immunity.
An ancient Mexican “ghost population” has been genetically identified. This group diverged from other Amerindians around 24,500 years ago and is not represented in modern populations.
Killing megafauna: a study suggests that the decline of many megafauna did not correlate with climatic events but with human habitation (see chart above).
More on genetic studies:
“The Genetics of Depression: Unraveling the Molecular Tapestry” (McGovern Medical School)
There is a significant genetic contribution to depression, with heritability estimates ranging from 30% to 50%.
GWAS have uncovered numerous genetic variants associated with increased risk of developing depression.
“Interaction effects of cumulative genetic score and psychological distress on excessive gaming: A 2-year longitudinal study” (Current Psychology, United States)
Seven identified genes appear to cumulatively amplify excessive videogaming among depressed/anxious individuals.
“Recent cognitive evolution in West Africa” (Peter Frost)
“Did I drink myself stupid because I’d inherited ‘alcohol genes’? asks Julie Cook - Revealing DNA research link alcohol consumption with genetics” (Mail Online)
“Belgian researchers discover gene specific to human brain” (Belga)
Researchers have discovered a gene, LRRC37B, that is only expressed in human neurons.
The gene modulates the excitability of human neurons, as distinct from other primates.
The discovery could lead to better understanding of epilepsy and autism.
“Ovarian physiology and GWAS: Biobanks, biology, and beyond” (Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism)
“Genome-wide association studies and polygenic risk score phenome-wide association studies across complex phenotypes in the human phenotype project” (ScienceDirect)
“Empowering GWAS discovery through enhanced genotype imputation” (MedRxiv preprint)
“A brief comparison of polygenic risk scores and Mendelian randomisation (BMC Medical Genomics)
“Tuning parameters for polygenic risk score methods using GWAS summary statistics from training data” (Nature Communications)
“Type 2 diabetes mellitus and the risk of male infertility: a Mendelian randomization study” (Frontiers in Endocrinology)
“Breast cancer incidence dialed down in individuals with low genetic risk” (GenomeWeb)
“Addition of polygenic risk score to a risk calculator for prediction of breast cancer in US Black women” (Breast Cancer Research)
“Genetic risk scores may help identify diabetes patients at high risk of developing DKD (Medical Dialogues, India)
“Multi-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of Parkinson’s disease” (Nature Genetics)
“Predicting racial and genetic susceptibility to prurigo nodularis with a polygenic risk score” (Physician’s Weekly)
“Improving the odds of predicting AMD risk” (MedPage Today)
“Replication of previous autism-GWAS hits suggests the association between NAA1, SORCS3, and GSDME and autism in the Han Chinese population” (Heliyon)
“The evolution and impact of genotype imputation methods in GWAS” (Alper Bülbül)
“Studies on IQ” (Breizh-Info, France)
“Applying polygenic risk score methods to pharmacogenomics GWAS: challenges and opportunities” (Briefings in Bioinformatics)
Further Learning
Michele Rivkin-Fish, Unmaking Russia’s Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics (Vanderbilt University Press)
This book explores changing practices of abortion in Soviet and contemporary Russian society.
As the predominant form of birth control in Soviet society, abortion reflected key paradoxes of communism: women held formal equality but lacked contraceptives.
With market reforms, Russians enjoyed new access to Western contraceptives and new pressures to postpone childbearing until economically self-sufficient.
Michele Rivkin-Fish examines how Russian family planners developed culturally salient frameworks to promote the acceptability of contraceptives and help end routine abortion. Rather than emphasizing individual rights, they explained family planning’s benefits to the nation in terms of stronger families and prevention of secondary sterility as a result of repeated, poor-quality abortions.
Fierce debates about abortion and contraceptives erupted as declining fertility was framed as threatening Russia’s demographic sovereignty. Nationalist opponents cast family planning as suspicious for its association with the individualistic, “child-free” West. The book shows how nationalist campaigns for higher fertility denounced family planning and dismantled its institutions.
Marina García-Granero on Nietzsche, Züchtung, Biopolitics, Race, and the Übermensch (The Dissenter)
The podcast interviews Dr. Marina García-Granero, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Valencia (Spain), to discuss the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
The episode explores the openness of of Nietzsche’s philosophy to different interpretations, biopolitics, and his call to overcome race (Über-Rasse).
Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch is compared to current transhumanist ideas.
“10 breakthrough technologies 2023” (MIT Technology Review)
The articles lists CRISPR for high cholesterol, organs on demand, and ancient DNA analysis among last year’s breakthrough technologies.
Other breakthroughs include AI image creation, mass-market military drones, electric vehicles, the James Webb space telescope, and battery recycling.
“The evolving landscape of global regulations on genome-edited crops” (Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology)
The article explores the emerging regulatory framework for gene-edited crops since the emergency of CRISPR.
While certain CRISPR-edited crops have already been introduced in Japan, their legal status remains a point of contention in several jurisdictions, including the EU and New Zealand.
The article provides an overview of the worldwide regulatory framework for CRISPR-edited crops, potential avenues for regulatory harmonization, and possible future prospects for the technology.
“OMG it’s a GMO: An analysis of using biotechnology on animals to mitigate biodiversity loss” (Virginia Environmental Law Journal)
Biotechnology, such as genetic engineering, genome editing, and animal cloning, could provide solutions help tackle the world’s dramatic biodiversity loss.
While biotechnology has been used to successfully clone an endangered species, the black-footed ferret, there remain many unanswered questions concerning the legality, viability, and practicability of using this technology as a mainstream method to mitigate biodiversity loss.
The article examines the legal and regulatory frameworks in place in the United States that guide the use of biotechnology for conservation purposes, as well as practical considerations, ethical concerns, and issues of public mistrust.
“Machine learning can accurately predict death nearly 80% of the time, a new study found” (Business Insider)
A new study says it’s possible to predict someone's time of death accurately.
The study used machine learning to create detailed life sequences for 6 million people in Denmark.
The dataset includes health records, salary, working hours, residences, and more.
Individuals with high incomes or who held managerial roles were more likely to survive longer. Men, skilled workers, and people with a mental health disorder were more likely to die earlier.
The model, life2vec, was also able to make predictions on personality traits such as self-esteem and sociability.
Disclaimer: The Genetic Choice Project makes every effort to include only reputable and relevant news, studies, and analysis on reprogenetics. We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect those of the Genetic Choice Project.