CGS encourages responsible uses and effecitve governance of human genetic and assisted reproductive technologies

Featured

DNA Tests: Neither Destiny nor History

By Pete Shanks | 10.16.2018
Biopolitical Times

Senator Elizabeth Warren has released the results of a DNA analysis bolstering her family’s belief that their ancestry is partly Native American. She did this as an understandable response to more than six years of political attacks, including specific demands that she be tested. But promoting such a test is extremely problematic.

The result does not prove that Warren is or even could be a member of the Cherokee tribe. As she herself tweeted, “DNA & family history has...

Technologies

Genetically modifying future children isn’t just wrong. It would harm all of us

By Marcy Darnovsky, The Guardian | 07.17.2018

Op-Ed

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has taken what it clearly regards as a brave new step: it has openly endorsed the use of genome editing to engineer the traits of future children and generations. The council’s report, Genome editing...

Human Genetic Modification

The Evolving State of Human Germline Editing

By Katie Hasson, GeneWatch | 08.06.2018

Op-Ed

A wave of controversy about reproductive gene editing gathered force in response to reports in 2015 of the first CRISPR...

Technologies

Beyond Bioethics: Toward a New Biopolitics

By Daniel Bojar, The Biologist [review of the book edited by CGS' Osagie K Obasogie and Marcy Darnovsky] | 09.06.2018

Aggregated News

The dramatic pace of scientific discoveries in recent decades has not only led to remarkable improvements in domains such as...

Society

Biopolitical Times

Death vs Google

By Pete Shanks | 11.07.2018

Five years ago, Time magazine published the cover story illustrated at left: Can Google Solve Death? We have an answer:...

Society

“The Eugenics Crusade” on PBS

By Pete Shanks | 11.07.2018

As part of the American Experience series, PBS has produced a documentary and website about the 20th-century eugenics movement in...

U.S. Federal

DNA Tests: Neither Destiny nor History

By Pete Shanks | 10.16.2018

Senator Elizabeth Warren has released the results of a DNA analysis bolstering her family’s belief that their ancestry is partly...

Technologies

News

Life span has little to do with genes, analysis of large ancestry database shows

By Sharon Begley, Stat News | 11.06.2018

Millions of amateur genealogists assembling family trees on Ancestry.com probably figure they’re just finding lost relatives and assessing their genetic proximity to Prince Harry, but in fact they have unintentionally made a significant contribution to science. An analysis of 54...

Technologies

Was I part British, part Dutch, a little bit Jewish? The oddness of DNA tests.

By Debra Bruno, The Washington Post | 11.03.2018

The other day, Ancestry.com told me that my mother was my mother.

Phew.

I was starting to wonder about some of the peculiar results that I’d been seeing from the two DNA testing companies I used.

Yes, I’m the kind...

Technologies

Editing nature: Scientists call for careful oversight of environmental gene editing

By Yale University, Phys | 11.01.2018

In Burkina Faso, the government is considering the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to eradicate malaria. In Nantucket, Mass., officials are looking at gene editing as a tool in the fight against Lyme disease. And scientists are using gene technology...

Animal Biotechnologies

Researchers launch plan to sequence 66,000 species in the United Kingdom. But that’s just a start

By Erik Stokstad, Science | 11.01.2018

LONDON—In the first attempt of its kind, researchers plan to sequence all known species of eukaryotic life—66,000 species of animals, plants, fungi, and protozoa—in a single country, the United Kingdom. The announcement was made here today at the official...

Technologies

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