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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...

By Stephanie M. Lee, BuzzFeed | 03.22.2016
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With every new device and feature, Apple further builds out its ecosystem in ways meant to make sure...

By Claire Maldarelli, Popular Science | 03.21.2016
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When Chinese researchers reported using a technique called CRISPR/Cas9 to edit the genome of human embryos this past...

By Anne Fausto-Sterling, Boston Review | 03.21.2016
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In the fall of 2015, U.S. college students ignited in protest about campus and national racism. Chanting “I...

By Ann Griswold, Spectrum News | 03.21.2016
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A new test claims to assess a child’s risk of autism based on abnormal folds in the placenta...

The Kabuki-cho entertainment district of Tokyo, Japan.
By The Mainichi, The Mainichi | 03.19.2016

Seventy-four wealthy Chinese couples struggling with infertility have had children using surrogates in Japan introduced by a broker, it has...

By Keston Ott-Dahl, HuffPost | 03.18.2016
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When my partner Andrea became a surrogate for another lesbian couple we had no idea we would end...

Figure 3. Fundus of patient with retinitis pigmentosa, end stage (Pigment deposits are present all over the retina. Retinal vessels are very thin and optic disc is pale.) Hamel Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases 2006 1:40 doi:10.1186/1750-1172-1-40 (Wikimedia)
By Katherine Bourzac, MIT Technology Review | 03.18.2016
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A blind woman in Texas is the first person to undergo therapy based on an emerging technology called...

By Amy Speier, The Conversation | 03.17.2016
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In 2008, a friend sent me a link to a Czech company called IVF Holiday. Clicking the link...