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...

 Two male scientists wearing lab coats in a laboratory looking at an illuminated board, reading the genetic code in the DNA.
By Lauren Kirschner, ProPublica | 10.11.2017

The National Institute of Standards and Technology announced last week that it is launching a new study of certain types...

Two young women, with protective eye wear and gloved hands, use plastic lab materials to look at a test tube filled with a pink liquid
By Adele Peters, Fast Company | 10.10.2017

“What we’ve got here is some DNA, and this is a syringe,” Josiah Zayner tells a room full of synthetic...

Empty race track with the lane numbers of 6, 7, and 8 marked.
By Michael Le Page, New Scientist | 10.09.2017

The battle between sports cheats and testers is poised to enter a whole new arena. The World Anti-Doping Agency has...

A young girl has ber back turned away from the camera, and sits on a rock, with jeans a brown t-shirt, and long hair. She looks onward to a rock and landscape.
By Sara Reardon, Nature | 10.06.2017

Tribal leaders are developing a policy for genetic research and data sharing, potentially ending a 15-year moratorium.

When the Navajo...

Portrait of Kazuo Ishiguro
By Ben Richmond, Vice Motherboard | 10.05.2017

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Silicon Valley skeptic, a science fiction writer who publicly pissed off Ursula Le Guin and, as...

An Orphan Black promotional poster, featuring two side by side portraits of a woman, with the headline "I am not your property" and "I am not your weapon."
By Elizabeth Preston, Neo.Life | 10.05.2017

A thriller about cloning, gene editing, and bioengineering is the perfect show for our times.

You don’t usually see TV shows...

Seven candles are lit in a darkened room.
By Vogue, Vogue | 10.04.2017

Chrissy Teigen is nothing if not candid—a quality that the model turned chef and television host is both adored and...

Four rolled up dollar bills are planted in an upright position in soil. A gardner's tool is blurred in the background
By Deirdre Fernandes, Boston Globe | 10.04.2017

At MIT and Brandeis University this week, newly minted Nobel Prize winners stressed the key role that federal funding played...