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.

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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

Inside America’s Horrifying Modern-Day Eugenics Movement

By Cassie Da Costa, The Daily Beast | 05.18.2020

Director Erika Cohn’s new film, Belly of the Beast, part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival which goes...

U.S. Federal

United States relaxes rules for biotech crops

By Erik Stokstad, Science | 05.18.2020

^{Photo by Erwan Hesry via Unsplash.com}

A major change to U.S. regulation of biotech will exempt some gene-edited plants from...

Animal Biotechnologies

100 Babies Stranded in Ukraine After Surrogate Births

By Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times | 05.16.2020

The babies lie in cribs, sleeping, crying or smiling at nurses, swaddled in clean linens and apparently well cared for...

Assisted Reproduction

A smartphone with Stay Home instructions

Apple and Google are building a virus-tracking system. Health officials say it will be practically useless.

By Reed Albergotti and Drew Harwell, Washington Post | 05.15.2020

_{Photo by Adrien Delforge on Unsplash}

Apple and Google’s announcement last month of a joint effort to track the coronavirus...

A painting of burying victims of the Black Death

From Black Death to fatal flu, past pandemics show why people on the margins suffer most

By Lizzie Wade, Science | 05.14.2020

_{Wikimedia Commons: Miniature by Pierart dou Tielt: The people of Tournai bury victims of the Black Death.}

When the Black...

Mouse embryos that are 4 per cent human are step towards spare organs

By Michael Le Page, New Scientist | 05.13.2020

Biologists have created mouse-human chimeras whose bodies were composed of up to 4 per cent human cells when the early...

Animal Biotechnologies

23andMe study to recruit sickest Covid-19 patients in bid to unravel role of genetics in disease

By Rebecca Robbins, STAT | 05.13.2020

As researchers probe DNA in search of clues about why some Covid-19 patients get so much sicker than others, they’re...

Judith Butler on the Violence of Neglect Amid a Health Crisis

By Francis Wade, The Nation | 05.13.2020

_{Image via Wikimedia Commons}

Judith Butler has achieved a status that few other living academics have acquired: For each published...

U.S. Federal