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...

Three cotton swabs lay inside of a DNA testing kit.
By Barbara J. King, NPR | 07.06.2017

In a new book, University of North Carolina, Charlotte anthropologist Jonathan Marks says that racism in science is alive and...

Portrait photo of Jeff Sessions during a testimony.
By Susan R. Paisner, Washington Post [Letter to the Editor] | 07.04.2017

I suppose by this point I shouldn’t be surprised by anything the Trump administration does relating to science. But as...

Side view angle of the Senate side of the US Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
By Charlotte Huff, Kaiser Health News | 06.29.2017

Two years ago, Cheasanee Huette, a 20-year-old college student in Northern California, decided to find out if she was a...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions stands behind podium at a press conference. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly are looking towards him from the side.
By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post | 06.29.2017

Leading U.S. science organizations called on the Justice Department to renew an abandoned partnership with independent scientists to help raise...

A female scientist looks closely at a dye marker on agarose gel used to separate DNA
By Jim Kozubek, STAT | 06.26.2017

The ruckus over the CRISPR gene-editing system hides a dark reality: its high cost may make it unaffordable and questions...

Four transparent panels displaying letters "ATCG (representing DNA bases).
By Sharon Begley, STAT | 06.26.2017

For all the promises of genomics ushering in a new era in medicine, with scientists regularly urging people to get...

A laboratory scientist, in goggles, and protective gear, holds a pipette and concentrates on placing a sample of liquid into a test tube.
By Jim Petro, Cincinnati- USA Today Network | 06.19.2017

As a state legislator, I served on the House committee that drafted Ohio’s current death penalty law. Later, as Ohio...

An unused 23andMe kit, displayed with box open and containing specimen bag, cotton swab, and vile container.
By Jessica Cussins, The Pharmaceutical Journal | 06.19.2017

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has, for the first time, granted permission to a company to provide limited...