News

Surrogacy goes more mainstream

By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Emily Galpern] | 03.29.2026

More Americans are turning to surrogacy to build their families, as the practice becomes more common and more publicly discussed.

Why it matters: As surrogacy becomes more visible and accessible, ethical, legal and cultural tensions become harder to ignore...

U.S. Federal

Eugenics and the Modern Synthesis, Part I

By Jessica Riskin, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 03.23.2026

This is the first part of the 14th 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...

Civil Society

Surrogacy laws are all over the map

By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Surrogacy360] | 03.29.2026

Without a federal law, surrogacy in the U.S. is governed by a patchwork of state regulations/

Why it matters: Confusing...

Policies

Project Eugenics: The Rollback of Disability Rights

By Kiana Jackson and Shannon Stubblefield, New Disabled South | 02.09.2026

^{"MC0_8230" via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 2.0}

This report documents a deliberate assault on disabled people in...

U.S. States

Change may allow scientists to grow human embryos longer

By Maria Cheng, Associated Press [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 05.26.2021

New guidelines released Wednesday remove a decades-old barrier to stem cell research, recommending that researchers be allowed to grow human...

Human Genetic Modification

a black and white cow staring straight ahead

The hunt for the master cow that will feed the world

By Matt Reynolds, Wired UK | 05.25.2021

Laura Domigan is a chronicler of cows. Every biographical detail and pharmacological footnote could be crucial, so the biochemist has...

Animal Biotechnologies

Bubble Baby Families Denied ‘Compassionate Use’ of Live-Saving Therapy

By David Jensen, Substack | 05.25.2021

Update 5/28: Orchard Exits Life-Saving Bubble-Baby Research in Wake of Flap Over Patient Access

A gene therapy company backed by...

Society

Scientists Partially Restored a Blind Man’s Sight With New Gene Therapy

By Carl Zimmer, New York Times | 05.24.2021

^{Photo by McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT

licensed for use under Creative Commons Attributions 2.5}

A team of...

Human Genetic Modification

The Risks of Gene Editing

By Stuart A. Newman and M.L. Tina Stevens, The New York Review | 05.23.2021

In response to: Editing Humanity’s Future from the April 29, 2021 issue

In her recent review of four books on...

Human Genetic Modification

These Sisters With Sickle Cell Had Devastating, and Preventable, Strokes

By Gina Kolata and Ilana Panich-Linsman, New York Times | 05.23.2021

It was 4 a.m. on a Sunday when Dana Jones heard an ominous sound, barely audible over the whirring of...

Perspectives

Need Public Policy for Human Gene Editing, Heatwaves, or Asteroids? Try Thinking Like a Citizen

By Nicholas Weller, Michelle Sullivan Govani, Mahmud Farooque, Issues in Science and Technology | 05.19.2021

In a ballroom at the Arizona Science Center one afternoon in 2017, more than 70 Phoenix residents—students, teachers, nurses, and...

Civil Society

The Promise and Perils of the New Fertility Entrepreneurs

By Anna Louie Sussman, The New Yorker | 05.19.2021

France Brunel, who is thirty-six, first considered freezing her eggs after ending a two-year relationship, in 2018. She’s not sure...

Media Coverage