News

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies.

His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, among other reasons, gene-editing was so new...

INTRODUCTION

Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.

Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...

Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at
National Human Genome Research Institute

Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on...

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer...

eugenics graphic on yellow background
By Carter Sherman, The Guardian | 03.11.2025

In his first address to the United States after becoming vice-president, JD Vance stood on stage and proclaimed: “I want...

Computing inside and outside a brain
By Craig S. Smith, Forbes | 03.08.2025

One recent evening in Shenzhen, a group of software engineers gathered in a dimly lit co-working space, furiously typing as...

selection of embryos
By Jamie Ducharme, TIME | 03.06.2025

After struggling for eight years to have a baby, Shannon Petersen and her husband decided to try in vitro fertilization...

Asilomar beach
By Jon Cohen, Science | 03.05.2025

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

On a nearly still and moonlit night last week, some 75 people formed a circle...

eugenics graphic
By Jason Wilson, The Guardian | 03.03.2025

A natalist conference featuring speakers including self-described eugenicists and promoters of race science, apparently including the man behind a previously...

Elon Musk
By Justin Kirkland, The Guardian | 03.03.2025

Image “Elon Musk” by Debbie Rowe, Royal Society on
Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by S.A. 3.0

I got into...

Stop Forced Sterilization graphic
By Julia Métraux, Mother Jones | 02.28.2025

“Stop Forced Sterilization” poster by Rachael Romero,
San Francisco Poster Brigade, 1977
Courtesy of Rachael Romero through Library of Congress...

police officer searches on a keyboard
By Mike Baker, The New York Times | 02.25.2025

As investigators struggled for weeks to find who might have committed the brutal stabbings of four University of Idaho students...