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...

Fertility Clinic
By Azeen Ghorayshi and Sarah Kliff, The New York Times | 02.22.2024

The bizarre episode was at the center of lawsuits filed by three families that eventually reached the Alabama Supreme Court...

Genomics Education
By Brian M. Donovan, Monica Weindling, Jamie Amemiya, Brae Salazar, Dennis Lee, Awais Syed, Molly Stuhlsatz, and Jeffrey Snowden, Science | 02.22.2024

For as long as the concept of race has existed, racial prejudice has been justified on hereditary grounds (1...

ivf graphic on a blue background
By Katherine L. Kraschel, Bill of Health | 02.21.2024

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court called frozen embryos created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) “extrauterine children” and referred to...

gene editing
By Megan Molteni , STAT | 02.21.2024

SAN FRANCISCO — Outside, the August sun wasn’t yet visible through the thick folds of fog blanketing the San Francisco...

DNA test
By Alaina Demopoulos, The Guardian | 02.17.2024

What’s next for 23andMe? Most people know the biotech company as a genetic testing service. Stories of people sending their...

Brain Neurons
By Nancy S. Jecker and Andrew Ko, The Conversation | 02.14.2024

How does a brain chip work?

Neuralink’s coin-size device, called N1, is designed to enable patients to carry out actions...

Scientists studying genes
By Philip Ball, Quanta Magazine | 02.14.2024

The discovery during the Human Genome Project in the early 2000s that we humans have only about 20,000 protein-coding genes...

Sickle Cells graphic
By Victoria Gray, Uduak Thomas, and Kevin Davies, The CRISPR Journal | 02.14.2024

In July 2019, medical staff in Nashville dosed the first U.S. patient in the exa-cel therapy trial, sponsored by Vertex...