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...

Landscape photo of an agricultural field. In the middle of the green field, there is a tractor.
By Sharon Begley, STAT | 09.22.2016

Agriculture giant Monsanto has licensed CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing technology from the Broad Institute for use in seed development, the company announced on...

A matrix tunnel of big data and numbers
By Cyrus Farivar, ARS Technica | 09.22.2016

A Kuwaiti lawyer has filed a formal constitutional challenge to his country’s controversial mandatory DNA law, which is reportedly set...

Illustrated clipboard, with three check marks on a generic list.
By Hannah Beech, Time | 09.21.2016

China is looking for quality sperm. Ever since the nation loosened its one-child family-planning policy earlier this year, its sperm...

A chaotic illustration of a DNA strand
By Heidi Ledford, Nature | 09.21.2016

Geneticist George Church has pioneered methods for sequencing and altering genomes. He has been called a founding father of synthetic...

A public hearing is in session, angled as if the viewer was in the audience facing the representative officials.
By Alexandra Ossola, Scientific American | 09.21.2016

Earlier this month the U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened its doors to public commentary on its newest guidelines on...

A clock is featured in the background of a stack of coins.
By Eyder Peralta, NPR | 09.21.2016

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative just announced one of its biggest investments to date: It is ponying up more than $3...

Two teammates of a tug-of-war game are pictured, with competitive looks on their faces as they cling to the rope. Onlookers look entertained.
By Hannah Devlin, The Guardian | 09.20.2016

Getting stuff right is normally regarded as science’s central aim. But a new analysis has raised the existential spectre that...