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...

Group of employees laboring over assembly line.
By Stuart A. Newman, Counterpunch | 07.31.2018

Human civilization has taken an important turn with the publication of a new report by the Nuffield Council, the semi-official...

Image of an aisle in a storage hacility with binders/boxes of numbered material.
By Tony Romm and Drew Harwell, Washington Post | 07.31.2018

Ancestry, 23andMe and other popular companies that offer genetic testing pledged on Tuesday to be upfront when they share users’...

Image is of stained cells (blue) highlighting diseased mitochondria (red).
By Radhika Viswanathan, Vox [Cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 07.28.2018

When scientists discover a new way to prevent disease or overcome infertility, they usually get applauded. But throw genetic engineering...

Image of a possum climbing a small tree over a snow-covered ground.
By Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 07.27.2018

In recent years, scientists have begun using the gene editing tool Crispr to experiment in the laboratory with altering embryos...

Image of a newborn baby being handled by a nurse.
By Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, Stat | 07.27.2018

I was 15 in 1978 when Louise Joy Brown’s birth captured the world’s attention. Still new to monthly menstrual cycles...

An individual crouches down on a lab counter to get a better look at the sample at hand.
By Cary Funk and Meg Hefferon, Pew Research Center | 07.26.2018

Americans’ views on the appropriateness of changing a baby’s genetic characteristics depend in large part on the intended purpose and...

Image of pharmaceutical bottles and pills scattered across a black surface.
By Maggie Fox, NBC News | 07.25.2018

Home DNA test results from the 5 million customers of 23andMe will now be used by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline to...

Lettuce plants grown indors in white containers.
By Ewen Callaway, Nature | 07.25.2018

Gene-edited crops should be subject to the same stringent regulations as conventional genetically modified (GM) organisms, Europe’s highest court ruled...