News

The Mysterious Eugenics of Aesthetic Taste

By Michael Rossi, The Los Angeles Review of Books | 01.11.2026

This is the 10th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. The series is organized by Osagie K. Obasogie in...

Arts & Culture

The mirage of AI deregulation

By Alondra Nelson, Science | 01.15.2026

One of the most interventionist approaches to technology governance in the United States in a generation has cloaked itself in the language of deregulation. In early December 2025, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce a forthcoming “One...

Global Governance

More and “Better” Babies: The Dark Side of the Pronatalist Movement

By Daphne O. Martschenko and Julia E. H. Brown, Hastings Bioethics Forum | 01.14.2026

There is growing concern that falling fertility rates will lead to economic and demographic catastrophe. The social and political movement...

Genetic Selection

Bay Area Startups Want to Make Genetically Engineered Babies. What Could Go Wrong?

By Grace Won, KQED Forum [with CGS' Katie Hasson] | 12.02.2025

In the U.S., it’s illegal to edit genes in human embryos with the intention of creating a genetically engineered baby...

Genetic Selection

Rejuvenation by controlled reprogramming is the latest gambit in anti-aging

By Michael Eisenstein, Nature Biotechnology | 01.19.2022

On 19 January, co-founders Rick Klausner and Hans Bishop publicly launched an aging research initiative called Altos Labs, with $3...

Animal Biotechnologies

Xenotransplantation: Three Areas of Concern

By L. Syd M. Johnson, The Hastings Center Bioethics Forum | 01.19.2022

News of the first transplant of a pig’s heart into a human was widely reported last week, raising hope that...

Synthetic Biology

Deregulating GMOs in the UK

By GMWatch, GMWatch | 01.19.2022

A new analysis by A Bigger Conversation suggests that, in its haste to deregulate agricultural gene technologies, the UK government...

Policies

Going bald? Lab-grown hair cells could be on the way

By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 01.18.2022

^{Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash}

Biologists at several startups are applying the latest advances in genetic engineering to the...

Stem Cells

Sperm donation is largely unregulated, but that could soon change as lawsuits multiply

By Naomi Cahn and Sonia Suter, The Conversation | 01.18.2022

^{"Advertisement for sperm donors, MIT Tech"

by milan.ilnyckyj is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0}

When Wendy and Janet Norman...

Policies

Artificial intelligence can discriminate on the basis of race and gender, and also age

By Charlene Chu, Kathleen Leslie, Rune Nyrup, and Shehroz Khan, The Conversation | 01.18.2022

^{Image by Mike MacKenzie licensed

under CC BY 2.0 via www.vpnsrus.com}

We have accepted the use of artificial intelligence (AI)...

A "Post-Human" Future?

NHS pilots genetic testing to predict risk of heart disease

By Hannah Devlin, The Guardian | 01.17.2022

A world-first pilot of predictive genetic testing aiming to identify those at high risk of cardiovascular disease is under way...

Policies

The legacy of eugenics at U.Va.

By Jack Morgan, The Cavalier Daily | 01.17.2022

In a majority opinion written in 1927 for the Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell...

U.S. States