Medical Regs & Ethics
Will genetically modifying embryos create real life dystopia?
Citing safety fears for babies, genetics researchers called for a halt to experiments that would alter the DNA of human ...
Evolution is weird: Killer diseases save lives and make us smarter?
Inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, Tay-Sachs disease and certain breast cancers can kill you or make life very challenging. So why ...
#ScientistsArePeople! “Mommy PhD” campaign challenges anti-GMO death, rape threats against scientists
I'm a scientist. Yet when I go on to advocacy blogs to share science-based information, my comments are deleted. I’m ...
Lack of proven benefit highlights danger of genetic tests for cancer
Online ads for genetic cancer tests that promise to identify the best treatment “to kill your cancer” and match the ...
Nex-gen technologies expand sequencing options for doctors
Genetic data has gone the way of fast food: It's cheap, speedy, and widely available. And that's a good thing, ...
Egg-freezing advocates invoke fear to win patients
Mark Surrey, fertility specialist to the Kardashians, opens with the story of a 44-year-old lawyer who waited too long to ...
Modern European languages traced to waves of migrating ancient Russian herders
New DNA evidence suggests that herders from the grasslands of today's Russia and Ukraine carried the roots of modern European ...
The Death of death? Review of “Evolving Ourselves” and unnatural selection
The meat of this controversial new book is the immense array of futurist and transhumanist possibilities for driving change on ...
Investigative food journalism should go for more than the yuck factor
Recent articles in the UK news media have 'lifted the lid' on the production of convenience food. While on the ...
Injury-prone? Your genes might explain why
Injury is a fact of life for most athletes, but some professionals—and some weekend warriors, for that matter—just seem more ...
How will approval of first copycat biotech drug impact consumer costs?
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first copy of a biotechnology drug for the U.S. market, firing the starting ...
Is UK’s ‘3-parent IVF’ approval up to ethical standards?
A lengthy and consequential policy process in the UK has now come to an end. Despite what could turn out ...
Same sex couples may eventually have biological children
Since Shinya Yamanaka reprogrammed first mouse and then human ordinary cells into powerful pluripotent stem cells, termed induced pluripotent stem ...
Is the antibiotics miracle about to end–And to what end?
Predictions that we might sacrifice the antibiotic miracle have been around almost as long as the drugs themselves. Penicillin was ...
Genes play larger role in autism than previously thought
Autism is caused by genetic make-up in 74-98 percent of cases, a Medical Research Council study of 516 twins indicates. The King's ...
Antibiotics starting to backfire? Here’s one possible solution
Current antibiotics may be reaching the end of their utility. They are often kill healthy parts of out microbiome along ...
Vitamin and mineral supplements: Miracle potions, silent dangers or both?
The multi-billion dollar vitamin and supplement industries are largely unregulated, in part because of the endorsement of one of the ...
Bionic hand controlled by thought restores movement to paralyzed limbs
Milo Marinkovic used to find it difficult to put toothpaste on his brush. He couldn’t tie his shoelaces and couldn’t ...
Proposed New York bill misguided attack on GMOs, vaccines
In a bizarre juxtaposition of irrational fears, a New York State legislator has introduced a bill to ban GMOs in ...
Microbes, more than diet, responsible for one type of malnutrition
Malnutrition seems like an intuitive problem: you don’t eat enough food, so your health suffers. But it’s not that simple ...
False positive screenings pose dire challenges for parents
One spring day in 2013, Dr. Jayme Sloan had bad news for Stacie Chapman, who was nearly three months pregnant ...
Blood based cancer test shows promise in mouse studies, detecting early stage tumors
Scientists are working to create a pill that would allow doctors to diagnose cancer with a simple blood test. The ...
Could some inherited diseases be treated more effectively before birth?
Rresearch in mice suggests that treatment for haemophilia – and maybe other inherited diseases – could start in the womb, ...
Cult of ‘natural’ opposes modernity
The idea of genes being crossed from different species into another — the “Frankenfood” myth—may sound strange and “unnatural” when it is ...
Soybeans genetically engineered to produce anti-HIV drug
Dozens of experiments by companies and academic institutions all over the world are using techniques to insert genes in the ...
Wrong kind of gut microbes could cause malnutrition
Malnutrition seems like an intuitive problem: you don’t eat enough food, so your health suffers. But it’s not that simple ...
Feeding toddlers peanuts may prevent peanut allergies
It may sound radical, but it works: Eating peanuts slashes the chance of a peanut allergy, at least in children ...
