News

'Superbabies' Startup Seeks Funds for Controversial Gene Editing Push

By Sophie Alexander and Ike Swetlitz, Bloomberg | 06.25.2025

A California-startup focused on genetically editing human embryos — a step toward creating so-called designer babies — is raising money as many of Silicon Valley’s ultra-rich turn their attention to one of the most controversial technologies in medicine.

Bootstrap Bio...

Patents & Other IP

Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they?

By Brittany Luse, Liam McBain, and Neena Pathak, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.28.2025

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These conditions are informed by many genetic variants and environmental factors - so...

Genetic Selection

Why Deleting Your 23andMe Data Is a Political Imperative

By Katie Sagaser, The DNA Exchange | 05.27.2025

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely my own and do not represent those of my...

U.S. Federal

Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests

By Pepper Stetler, Los Angeles Review of Books | 05.08.2025

^{"Donald Trump Signs The Pledge" by Michael Vadon

is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.}

This is...

Society

Home-Made Covid Vaccine Appeared to Work, but Questions Remained

By Kristen V Brown , Bloomberg | 10.10.2020

Josiah Zayner’s plan was simple: replicate a Covid-19 vaccine that had worked in monkeys, test it on himself and then livestream the...

Synthetic Biology

Election 2020: Prop. 14 would boost funding on stem-cell research

By Ron Leuty, San Francisco Business Times | 10.09.2020

It would dedicate $1.5 billion of its total to research and therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, stroke, epilepsy and...

Stem Cells

Live facial recognition is tracking kids suspected of being criminals

By Karen Hao, MIT Technology Review | 10.09.2020

In a national database in Argentina, tens of thousands of entries detail the names, birthdays, and national IDs of people...

Society

The Xinjiang Data Police

By Darren Byler, Noema | 10.08.2020

Preparing For War

Baimurat saw the advertisement for the new job sometime around December 2016. He had come back to...

Society

The Mythical Taboo on Race and Intelligence

By John P. Jackson, Jr., Andrew S. Winston, Review of General Psychology | 10.07.2020

Recent discussions have revived old claims that hereditarian research on race differences in intelligence has been subject to a long...

Perspectives

How Trump Exemplifies Our Ableist Culture

By Steven W. Thrasher, Scientific American | 10.07.2020

It was a grotesque sight: the president of the United States preening from the White House balcony, his mask pulled...

Civil Society

The Promise and the Reality of Gene Editing

By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times | 10.07.2020

In July 2019, MIT Technology Review took a break from its usual beats, such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, to...

Human Genetic Modification

Scientists win Nobel chemistry prize for 'genetic scissors'

By Linda Geddes, The Guardian | 10.07.2020

Two scientists have been awarded the 2020 Nobel prize in chemistry for developing the genetic scissors used in gene editing...

Human Genetic Modification