News

These companies help parents try to pick their babies' traits. Experts are wary

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.06.2026

Justin Schleede reaches onto a black lab bench to pick up a tray of small plastic tubes.

"These are saliva samples as well as blood," says Schleede, a geneticist who runs Herasight Inc.'s lab in Morrisville, N.C. "We also...

Genetic Selection

The Measured Listener

By Daniel Shanahan, Los Angeles Review of Books | 05.31.2026

This is the 15th 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. You can read the first part here. The series...

U.S. States

The start-ups dreaming of creating genetically modified babies

By Alexandre Piquard, Le Monde [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.22.2026

"If proven to be safe, we believe preventive gene editing could be one of the most important health technologies of...

U.S. Federal

Natural Election

By Jonathan Basile, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 04.29.2026

WILLIAM BATESON, a foundational figure in the science of genetics at the turn of the last century, once recounted the...

Society

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

The Folly of ‘America First’ in the Race for Biodata Amid a Pandemic

By Tamsin Shaw, The New York Review of Books | 05.13.2020

America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a shocking lack of preparedness for public health emergencies. But it has...

Genomics

Coronavirus is the ultimate demonstration of the real-world impact of racism

By Alana Lentin, The Guardian | 05.12.2020

As coronavirus continues to rampage across the globe, it has become apparent that, while biologically the virus may not discriminate...