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...

gene therapy graphic
By Oriol Güell, El País | 02.17.2025

A “small strand of blood in the poop.” This was the first sign, initially viewed as unimportant, that put Jesús...

a photograph of Edinburgh, Scotland
By Mark McLaughlin, The Times | 02.17.2025

Scottish authorities collaborated with a Nazi eugenicist to racially profile Gypsies and Travellers as part of a campaign of “cultural...

DNA graphic
By Matthew Cobb, Nature | 02.17.2025

On 24 February 1975, some 150 people met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds near Monterey on the Californian coast. They...

superbaby graphic
By Katie Hasson, The New York Times Upfront | 02.17.2025

A young couple wants to have a baby, but they’re worried it’ll carry a disease that runs in the family...

biodiversity DNA graphic
By Ben Johnson, Nature | 02.14.2025

A London-based biotech has amassed the world’s largest ethically sourced foundational biodiversity database for training artificial intelligence (AI) by setting...

lab equipment
By Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic | 02.14.2025

Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash

For decades in the united states, scientists and government officials have coexisted in a...

eugenics graphic
By Lily Hu, Los Angeles Review of Books | 02.13.2025

IN MAY 1921, the organizers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics assured the public that its conference, to be...

global egg trade graphic
By Nino Tarkhnishvili, Radio Free Europ | 02.13.2025

When Na, a Thai woman, saw a Facebook advertisement promising work as a surrogate mother in Georgia, it seemed almost...