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...

Photo of Charpentier presenting, with a picture of microscopic cells in the background.
By Sarah Buhr, Tech Crunch | 06.19.2017

Continuing the patent dispute internationally, China has now given the Charpentier/Doudna side a patent to edit genes in the country.

CRISPR...

Portrait photo of a Cambodian woman smiling, while sitting on the ground.
By South China Morning Post | 06.18.2017

Peeling a mango inside her rickety wooden shack, Chhum Long explained how her daughter’s decision to nurture a Western couple’s...

The Earth in orbit, with one side illuminated by the sun, and the other side in darkness.
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff, New York Times | 06.17.2017

There’s a well-to-do couple thinking about having children. They order a battery of genetic tests to ensure that there’s nothing...

Two pigs, in a barn, gaze directly at the camera.
By Angela Chen, The Verge | 06.16.2017

The road to growing organs in pigs is paved with ethical questions

In 2003, a South Korean company called Maria...

A double helix diagonally positioned as if it were moving. Small speckles surround it.
By Ed Young, The Atlantic | 06.16.2017

Three Stanford scientists have proposed a provocative new way of thinking about genetic variants, and how they affect people’s bodies

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Microscopic image of an oocyte and the tip of a syringe.
By Kristen V. Brown, Gizmodo | 06.16.2017

Last fall, John Zhang made headlines after his fertility clinic announced that for the first time a baby had been...

DNA profile illuminated by a light.
By Nathan Tempey, Gothamist | 06.16.2017

A state commission voted this morning to adopt a controversial policy allowing police to perform familial DNA searches in certain...

Close-up of an adult hand gently touching a baby's curled up hand.
By Antonio Regelado, MIT Technology Review | 06.15.2017

Chinese parents can now decode the genomes of their healthy newborns, revealing disease risks as well as the likelihood of

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