News

During his 2015 State of the Union address, then-President Barack Obama announced what he promised would be an ambitious public health project. “Tonight, I’m launching a new Precision Medicine Initiative to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes...

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...

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

"These are saliva...

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

Uncooked white rice in a circular bowl container.
By Bai Tiantian, Global Times | 01.22.2018

A genetically modified (GM) rice product developed by a group of Chinese scientists has acquired the US Food and Drug...

Gray scale image of an egg timer.
By Zoë Corbyn, The Guardian | 01.21.2018

My sisters, aged 27 and 30, are seated at their computers poring over the slick websites of companies promising to...

Gray scaled image, showing a woman who appears to be falling, with her hair covering her face and in motion.
By Andria Borba and Molly McCrea, CBS SF Bay Area | 01.21.2018

Young women see the ads on their Facebook feeds, in a college newspaper, even posted on Craig’s List.

They read...

Close up of a pregnant belly covered by a t-shirt. A hand gently rests caressing its side. The picture is filtered with gray scale.
By Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian | 01.19.2018

A new advanced test for Down’s syndrome to be offered to pregnant women this year raises the prospect of people...

A medical expert wearing gloves and a white coat, hold a needle as a patient extends their arm.
By Michael White, Pacific Standard Magazine | 01.18.2018

Last year will be remembered for many things, many of them not good. But here's at...

Microsopic image of red blood cells traveling through a vessel.
By Richard Harris, NPR | 01.18.2018

Researchers say they have taken a step toward developing a blood test that would detect eight common cancers, possibly even...

Orange, Red, and Green artist rendition of DNA helices
By Richard Lachman, The Conversation | 01.17.2018

In 1959, the British physicist and novelist C.P. Snow delivered a famously controversial lecture at Cambridge University. He described...

Repeating letters ATCG in a colorful chart that represents a DNA sequence.
By Marcy Darnovsky, Leaps Magazine | 01.17.2018

“I want to democratize science,” says biohacker extraordinaire Josiah Zayner.

This is certainly a worthy-sounding sentiment. And it is central...