News

Cathy Tie slips on a white lab coat bearing her name and the logo of her startup: Origin Genomics. "Welcome!" she says as she leads an NPR reporter, photographer and videographer on an exclusive tour of Origin's labs located...

This is the 17th 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 Osagie K. Obasogie in...

THE INSTAGRAM POST, precision-guided by sex and age, had zeroed in on its target. Yuchen Tu is a conser­vatory-trained viola...

This is the 16th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring...

Down syndrome ultrasound
By Richard Gunderman, Psychology Today | 01.03.2021

A recently released study finds that Europe has reduced the number of babies born with Down syndrome by 54%. In...

Facial recognition
By Catherine Stinson, American Scientist | 01.01.2021

“Phrenology” has an old-fashioned ring to it. It sounds like it belongs in a history book, filed somewhere between bloodletting and...

By Eric T. Jeungst, AMA Journal of Ethics | 01.01.2021

Abstract

The Holocaust and the racial hygiene doctrine that helped rationalize it still overshadow contemporary debates about using gene editing...

Human genome graphic
By Megan Molteni , Wired | 12.30.2020

IN 1987, WHEN researchers first used the word genomics to describe the newly developing discipline of mapping DNA, Eric Green had...

IVF clinic equipment
By Helen Pidd, The Guardian | 12.29.2020

England’s first not-for-profit IVF clinic is to open in London next year, run by a charity better known for providing...

Home DNA kit
By Darrell Etherington, TechCrunch | 12.29.2020

DNA testing technology company 23andMe  has raised just shy of $82.5 million in new funding, from an offering of...

A crowd under surveillance
By Davide Castelvecchi, Nature | 12.23.2020

After a year of heavy scrutiny and seemingly endless controversy around artificial-intelligence (AI) technologies, the field’s most prestigious conference has...

Cancer cells
By Jocelyn Kaiser, Science | 12.22.2020

It’s troubling news that gene therapy researchers have long anticipated: A hemophilia patient injected with a virus carrying a therapeutic...