News

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...

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...

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

Why it matters: Confusing...

"MC0_8230" via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 2.0 

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

By Tina Hesman Saey, Science News | 03.04.2021

It’s been two decades since the Human Genome Project first unveiled a rough draft of our genetic instruction book. The...

By Staff, The Economist | 03.03.2021

Every time one of America’s genetic-testing companies advertises a deal on DNA kits, Michael (not his real name) braces himself...

Alice Wong video
By Alice Wong, Mashable | 03.03.2021

There are two major lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Alice Wong, founder and director of...

A trans flag
By Evan Urquhart, Slate | 03.03.2021

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

A huge wave of anti-transgender legislation is coursing through statehouses in the early months...

By Kate Womersley, Prospect | 03.03.2021

It’s a familiar story: the virile sperm fights its path through the hostile uterus to the passive female egg. After...

COVID test
By Walter Isaacson, STAT | 03.03.2021

In early January 2020, Feng Zhang, a gene-editing researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, started getting emails...

Robot arm
By Vivek Wadhwa, Tarun Wadhwa, Foreign Policy | 03.01.2021

A century’s worth of change is about to be squeezed into a single decade. By 2030, entire industries are likely...

By Alexandra Minna Stern, Los Angeles Times | 02.28.2021

Last month, Caltech announced that the names of six men with historical ties to the university would be removed from...