Featured in Weekly Newsletter
How climate change is disrupting animal ‘food webs’ and what it might mean for the future
It seems like each day scientists report more dire consequences of climate change on animals and plants worldwide. Birds that ...
Viewpoint: While most of Europe remains in thrall of crop biotechnology rejectionism, sustainability promises of CRISPR gene editing may soon lead to ‘political deconstruction’
The European Commission recently published a report on "new genomic techniques," including CRISPR gene editing, which was expected to have major ...
Organ transplantation: Challenging ethical questions on race, economics, and the meaning of life
At an international conference on kidney transplantation in 1963, a disagreement broke out about exactly when a patient should be considered ...
Which provides better long-term protection against coronavirus reinfection: An actual infection or a vaccine?
Two recent studies have confirmed that people previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can be reinfected with ...
Podcast: EU food retailers don’t want CRISPR crops; Glyphosate threatens insects? Gene editing may fight high cholesterol
European food retailers want food made from CRISPR-edited crops labeled "GMO," which could prevent EU farmers from utilizing gene editing ...
Viewpoint: Why we need to remove ‘politically-motivated regulatory barriers’ hindering genetically modified crop innovation
Genetically modified (GM) organisms and crops have been a feature of food production for over 30 years. Despite extensive science-based ...
Viewpoint: Organic lobbyists show ‘sheer hypocrisy’ opposing UK emergency authorization of neonicotinoid sugar beet seed treatments — while supporting environmental waiver for ‘acutely toxic’ copper sulfate
The Government was right to make provision for a temporary and limited derogation for the use of the neonicotinoid seed ...
Viewpoint: Why the Wuhan lab escape theory explaining the origin of the global pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach ...
How important is soil quality to addressing climate change? It’s critical, and here’s a blueprint for refocusing American R&D
COVID-19 and the resulting economic crisis have highlighted and exacerbated the plight of American farmers, while also threatening already dwindling ...
Viewpoint: Suspending COVID vaccine patents will not solve the supply problem or hasten the end of the pandemic
In a recent Washington Post column, Fareed Zakaria wrote: The United States is entering a post-pandemic era. This is happening primarily ...
Africa cracks down on ravenous locust swarms by ignoring Greenpeace’s anti-pesticide rhetoric
As nations around the world struggle with COVID-19 and related economic lockdowns, African countries are fighting another plague: swarms of ...
Podcast: Bad science in the headlines—Epidemiologist Geoffrey Kabat explains how to spot flawed research on Google News
A just-published study found that consuming two or more sugar-sweetened beverages in a day is linked to a doubling of ...
Banned in Uganda: While the Irish potato faces disease and climate change, politics stymie farmers eager to adopt still unapproved GM seeds
It's a five-hour drive into the western part of Uganda to Kachwekano Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute (KaZARDI), where ...
Genomic Cold War? More nations joining the US in using biotechnology to enhance military capabilities
The UK government recently announced an £800 million, taxpayer-funded Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria). The brainchild of the British ...
Viewpoint: Mexico’s ‘cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face’ glyphosate ban — Why prohibiting one of the safest herbicides in the world will dramatically increase the use of a demonstrably more harmful alternative
It appears that the proposed Mexican government plan to ban all genetically engineered corn and the widely used herbicide glyphosate ...
Incurable Huntington’s disease? microRNA offers hope in the wake of failed clinical trials
A recent DNA Science post considered the ebb and flow of treatment possibilities for Alzheimer’s disease. This week, it’s Huntington’s disease. Like ...
‘Flawed process leads to flawed science’: Why the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer claims glyphosate causes cancer
The recent excellent article by Josh Bloom, “NYC Pol Uses Phony Cancer Scare & ‘Children’ to Ban Glyphosate in Parks,” ...
Viewpoint: ‘Make America Safe Again’—Conservative calls for fellow rightists to get vaccinated
As a conservative, I praised most of President Trump’s efforts to “Make America great again,” including the financial incentive to ...
How CRISPR and other gene-edited crops are regulated in the United States and around the world: A scholarly review
Genome editing in agriculture and food is leading to new, improved crops and other products. Depending on the regulatory approach ...
Science Facts and Fallacies Podcast: COVID’s mysterious origins; Why some anti-vaxxers got their shots; Unwise J&J ‘pause’?
Where did SARS-COV-2 come from? For most of the last year a natural origin story was the predominant view among ...
Viewpoint: ‘Killer petunias’? The shameful story of the USDA’s ‘unscientific, innovation-stifling’ process for regulating genetically-engineered flowers
Now that vivid orange, red, and purple genetically engineered petunias are approved for distribution to plant nurseries, it’s time for ...
Viewpoint: Farm-to-Fork plan suggests Europe wants sustainable farming. So why do EU politicians ignore the ‘green’ benefits of GM crops?
There is ongoing disagreement between the popularly elected European Parliament and the executives in the European Commission over approvals of ...
COVID and immunity: How long will it last if you get a vaccine or were infected?
The COVID vaccines are working. Data from Israel and Scotland shows that they are protecting people and may also be decreasing ...
Ideological rigidity is hampering efforts to leverage the regenerative agriculture ‘revolution’. Here are two paths forward
Does regenerative agriculture require a completely new economics of farming to achieve scale? Or should the focus be on the ...
Why do some animals live extraordinarily long lives — and can humans benefit from studying them?
Life, for most of us, ends far too soon — hence the effort by biomedical researchers to find ways to ...
Viewpoint: Battling corporate takeover of agriculture? Activists who oppose GMOs and other forms of farming biotechnology hurt vulnerable populations they claim to want to protect
Activist groups which oppose so-called ‘genetically modified organisms’ (GMOs) frequently affirm that they want to fight corporations and capitalism. While ...
‘In nature, everything is connected’: Can synthetic biology reverse the decline in our depleted marine ecosystem?
Our blue planet runs on ocean ecosystems that are currently in steep decline. In the last 50 years, the amount ...
