Featured in Weekly Newsletter
Regulating fast-moving consumer genetic testing industry is no small challenge
Submitting a vial of spit to a genetic testing company is easy. Understanding the implications — and regulating the burgeoning ...
Strange bedfellows: American Academy of Pediatrics allies with Environmental Working Group, known for anti-science messages
On the subjects of organics and pesticides, the American Academy of Pediatrics finds itself supporting the Environmental Working Group, an ...
25 years of GMO crops: Economic, environmental and human health benefits
Since the first GMO crop was developed in 1994, genetically modified foods have provided countries around the world with economic, ...
We know the placebo effect is biological. Is it also genetic?
We know that the placebo effect is in part biological: expectations of receiving a palliative leads to brain changes. Are ...
Viewpoint: Why the USDA decided not to over-regulate CRISPR crops—and what it means for agriculture’s future
On 28 March, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that “USDA does not regulate or have any plans to regulate plants that could ...
Where do we come from? Question grows ever more complicated
It was recently discovered that modern humans are part of the African great apes family, but how did this classification ...
Mood disorders more common in children of first-cousin parents, study finds
Having parents who are first cousins doubles the risk of inheriting a single-gene condition, from 2.5 percent to about 5 ...
‘Natural’ label lawsuits: What you need to know
In the United States, when a food label uses the word “natural,” food companies are frequently the target in litigation ...
Scientists challenge Center for Biological Diversity report claiming monarch butterflies threatened by dicamba herbicide
Dicamba drifts. Apparently, more than expected by a lot of farmers, agriculture officials and manufacturers. But does that mean, as ...
Examining the curious genes behind ‘magic mushrooms’
"One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small,” sang Grace Slick in Jefferson Airplane’s classic White Rabbit, conjuring ...
GMO maize could halt devastating fall army worm invasion in Uganda—if it gets approved
Mary Yangi trekked a long journey from South Sudan to Uganda’s West Nile region to settle as a refugee and, ...
What’s stopping us from using CRISPR to gene edit humans to fight disease?
Emerging clinical applications of CRISPR editing include delivery of CRISPR systems into the body to repair genetic sequences. This is ...
Viewpoint: How politics pollutes the FDA’s genetically modified animal regulations and stifles innovation
AquaBounty's fast-growing salmon and Oxitec's disease-fighting mosquitos are two examples of why genetically modified animals should be regulated by the ...
Here’s what we really know about transgender genetics—so far
The week started strangely. On [March 19], the author of a new book on transgender identity emailed me, asking about ...
The human cost of the anti-GMO movement: Why one scientist is quitting GE crop research
Constantly confronting people who think my research will harm them is profoundly distressing ...
Viewpoint: We have much to gain from questioning the theory that humans evolved in Africa
The African origin theory reigns supreme. Every attempt to disprove the theory offers a chance to consider the evidence all ...
‘Boneless watermelons’? What this new ‘hot fruit’ can teach us about non-GMO labels and fear-based marketing
Nowadays labels extol the absence of something that never was there in the first place. Such marketing schemes manipulate the ...
From GMOs to CRISPR: Making sense of how genetic engineering tweaks nature
Many new genetic engineering techniques have been stumbled upon by accident. Studying how bacteria defend themselves has led to CRISPR ...
Fertility clinic meltdown: What happens when slumbering eggs are awakened early
Fragile spindle apparatuses are an integral part to embryonic growth. What happened to embryo structures when they were thawed and ...
Viewpoint: Will the crop biotechnology revolution pass Nigeria by?
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is creating a new era, fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds. Breakthroughs in different fields ...
Viewpoint: How Germany’s anti-GMO, pro-organic politics benefit US ag companies
Editor's note: The following is a satirical letter written by Reinhard Szibor, professor emeritus of human genetics and forensic medicine at the ...
Facing extreme danger, are you ‘wired’ to fight or take flight?
"Fight or flight" reactions are much more complicated than we were taught in school. That fact has implications for reacting ...
Modern Victor Frankenstein? What synthetic biologists can learn from the classic cautionary tale
Mary Shelley was 20 when she published “Frankenstein” in 1818. Two hundred years on, the book remains thrilling, challenging and ...
How ‘open source’ seed producers from the US to India are changing global food production
Around the world, plant breeders are resisting what they see as corporate control of the food supply by making seeds ...
Did the EPA and Monsanto conspire to hide glyphosate’s health risks?
A recent op-ed in the Sacramento Bee repeated the debunked conspiracy theory that Monsanto manipulated the EPA to hide evidence ...
Why the body’s response to pregnancy may help us better understand cancer
Cancer cells and placental cells regulate the immune system in remarkably similar ways. We can learn a great deal by ...
Space astronaut twin’s DNA ‘changed’? How some reports botched the story, and what we really know
When the Today Show reported on March 15 that the DNA of Scott Kelly, who spent a year on the ...
