News

This is Ask An Expert, where every weekday at 9:20am, KCBS Radio is giving you direct access to top experts in various fields. Today: Gene-editing technology allows scientists to work with DNA in unprecedented ways, but there are larger scientific...

For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby.

Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called...

Pronatalism is an old idea with roots in eugenics and nationalism, that is now fashionable among far-right influencers and policymakers. They talk...

This is the 10th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring...

Gloved hand holding pipette and test tube
By Matthew Weaver, The Guardian | 09.18.2018

The fertility regulator has called for DNA testing websites to warn customers about the risks of uncovering traumatic family secrets...

Newborn baby lying on white towel
By Amber Haque, BBC | 09.17.2018

Labour is calling for a ban on parents-to-be being told the sex of their baby after early blood tests, amid...

Blue double helix DNA on black background
By Laura Hercher, The New York Times | 09.15.2018

In many ways, Matt Fender, a 32-year-old resident of New York City, is the prototypical 23andMe customer: tech-savvy, educated, a...

Cover of Beyond Bioethics: Helical DNA on yellow background
By Travis Chi Wing Lau , Somatosphere [review of the book edited by CGS' Osagie K Obasogie and Marcy Darnovsky] | 09.13.2018

The science will let loose its cascading interactions with utter impassivity; yet how we inhabit that knowledge will be a...

Pregnant woman in pink dress holding stomach
By Madeline Roache, Al Jazeera News | 09.13.2018

Kiev, Ukraine - Throughout Ukraine, advertisements about becoming a surrogate mother are plastered on buses and throughout the metro...

Large golden retriever dog lying on grass
By Jessica Hekman, Undark | 09.13.2018

The promise of a sequenced genome is like a wrapped present, containing exactly what you always wanted but never knew...

Two upright pill bottles, one pill lying down, and several loose pills, all on top of a black table
By Jennifer Tsai, Scientific American | 09.12.2018

They tell us race is an invention.

That there is more genetic variation between two black people than there is...

Three stages of human evolution, looking more like a modern man from left to right. Pencil drawings on a tan background
By Michael Schulson, Undark | 09.12.2018

LAST SPRING, Paul Strode gave an unusual survey to his advanced biology students at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado...