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

Regulating Assisted Reproduction

By Sandy Hausman, WTVF Radio IQ | 10.06.2021

^{Matylda Sęk | CC-BY-SA-3.0}

The first American test tube baby was born here in Virginia forty years ago, but the...

U.S. States

A Controversial Autism Treatment Is About to Become a Very Big Business

By Anna Merlan, Vice | 10.06.2021

When desperate parents are looking for medical treatment for their kids, especially their autistic kids, they often do two things...

Stem Cells

Francis Collins, Who Guided N.I.H. Through Covid-19 Crisis, Is Exiting

By Noah Weiland and Gina Kolata, The New York Times | 10.05.2021

WASHINGTON — Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, holed up in an Airbnb in...

Society

At-home genetic testing for cancer and other disease risk is booming: Should you try it?

By A. Pawlowski, Today | 10.04.2021

Breast Cancer Awareness Month will cause many women to worry about their hereditary risk for developing the disease, especially if...

Society

The ethical landscape(s) of non-invasive prenatal testing in England, France and Germany: findings from a comparative literature review

By Adeline Perrot & Ruth Horn, European Journal of Human Genetics | 10.04.2021

Abstract

Since 2019, England, France and Germany have started offering NIPT as a publicly funded second-tier test for common chromosomal...

Genomics

California state park with ties to racist past will now be called by Indigenous name

By Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times | 10.04.2021

^{Photo by Kirt Edblom on Flickr}

Skip Lowry learned the Indigenous dances of the Yurok people as a child by...

Civil Society

Microscope images of HeLa cells colored in green and blue

Family of Henrietta Lacks files suit against biotech company for using famous ‘HeLa’ cells without permission

By Meredith Cohn and Hallie Miller, The Baltimore Sun | 10.04.2021

Family members of Henrietta Lacks filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. biotech giant Thermo Fisher Scientific accusing the company...

Biotech & Pharma

Britney’s conservatorship is one example of how the legacy of eugenics in the US continues to affect the lives of disabled women

By Michaela Kathleen Curran, The Conversation | 10.01.2021

^{Photo by Mike Maguire on Flickr}

Britney Spears has been locked in a court battle 13 years in the making...

Media Coverage