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Worries about artificial human enhancement persist among Americans

Ed Cara |
[According to] an extensive survey conducted by the Pew Research Center...[s]ixty-eight percent [of over 4,000 Americans] were somewhat or very ...
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Synthetic biologists developing cells programmed to target, destroy cancer

Ben Locwin |
Synthetic biology might be ready to graduate from cells engineered to perform only one task to multiple cells in a ...

Gene fix for muscle wasting may help improve gene treatments, save lives

Stephen Feller |
The breakdown of muscle often accompanies chronic or long-term disease, making disease worse and sometimes hastening death, and doctors have ...
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Precision medicine revolution moves to developing world

Elizabeth Woyke |
Colon cancer is less common in India than in the U.S., but it tends to affect younger people and to ...
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Scientists gradually identifying genes linked to depression

Malcolm Ritter |
In a key advance for the study of depression, a comprehensive scan of human DNA has turned up the apparent ...

While no gene โ€˜causesโ€™ mental illness, some genes make people more sensitive to environment

Tanya Lewis |
The same genes could make a person feel happy or depressed, depending on their environment. Combining research on genetics and ...
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Is Alzheimer’s blood test too good to be true?

Anyone who has ever visited a doctorโ€™s office is familiar with the use of blood tests for the diagnosis of ...
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Humans who can’t feel pain pointing way to non-addictive painkillers

Meredith Knight |
Genes linked to pain detection and perception may be physiological targets for new, non-addictive painkillers ...

Developing world eclipsing Europe as biotech incubator, crops with consumer-focused traits poised for market

Tom Bulford |
Acrylamide is . . . .ย proven to increase the risk of cancer. . . .ย in 2002 when Swedish scientists found ...

Oregon winemaker say organic vineyards not sustainable

โ€œOrganic practices have bred a class 11 resistant powderyย  mildew (PM) critter. OSU sent out a bulletin saying if you ...

Short bursts of brain activity during sleep may be key for memory consolidation

Richard Kemeny |
Sleep is essential for memory. Mounting evidence continues to support the notion that the nocturnal brain replays, stabilizes, reorganizes, and ...
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Baby making moves from bedroom to the laboratory

Natalie Schreyer |
The future of baby-making is not in a bed, or in the back seat of a car. It's in a ...
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Neuroscientists revisit horrific 1966 Texas tower massacre

Eva Friederick |
Smart, strong, talented and popular, the young Charles Whitman seemed, outwardly, like a poster child for the โ€œall-American boyโ€ stereotype ...

Craig Venter’s goal is to sequence 100 million genomes

Arlene Weintraub |
[Craig]ย Venterโ€™s goal is to sequence at least one million genomes, something that seems likely to take the better part of ...

Genes major influence on academic achievement–and that makes leftists uncomfortable

Olivia Goldhill |
Aย massive and fast growing field in scienceโ€”behavioral geneticsโ€”has a huge body of conclusive evidence that, at first reading, seems at ...

Business booming for stem cell therapy clinics despite dearth of evidence of effectiveness

Gina Kolata |
Out of nowhere, over the past two to three years, the clinics have sprung up โ€” 570 in the United ...
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Are Olympic athletes using ‘gene doping’ to improve performance?

John Horgan |
The World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, which advises the Olympics and other sports organizations on illicit performance-enhancement, has accused Russia of ...
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Future of regenerative medicine may be making human tissue from fruits

Jesse Gamble |
In the high-ceilinged basement lab, the ear lies flat, encapsulated in a dish on a sheet-metal cabinet. Itโ€™s actually a ...

GMOs in fight against Zika more than just about eliminating mosquitos

Jeff Bessen |
The shadow of the Zika virus hangs over the Rio Olympic Games, with visitors and even high-profile athletes citing worries ...

Patients under hypnosis exhibit distinct patterns of brain activity

Carl Zimmer |
Psychiatrists have been using hypnosis on patients for decades โ€” to help them reduce their pain or kick a smoking ...
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Belgian lab tapping genetics of yeast to brew better beer

Ewen Callaway |
Kevin Verstrepenโ€™s lab meetings can be pretty boozy affairs. Twice a week, several members of his group at Belgiumโ€™s University ...

Bacteria that resides in our nose produces MRSA killing antibiotic

Kai Kupferschmidt |
A new antibiotic that has, quite literally, emerged from the human nose. The compound is produced by one species of ...

Is egg freezing too expensive to help women who could benefit most from procedure?

Rhiannon Cosslett |
In the US, the marketing of egg freezing as a kind of insurance policy for millennials is already in full ...
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Tale of two sites: Science communication pitfalls covering Alzheimer’s drug

Nicholas Staropoli |
The same drug trial has been covered in completely different ways by various news outlets. It serves as a lesson ...

Severe genetic birth defects not as lethal as doctors once thought

Lindsey Tanner |
Parents of newborns with rare genetic conditions used to hear the grim words that the severe birthย defects were โ€œincompatible with ...

Gene common among Samoans is strongest genetic predictor of obesity

Alice Klein |
It could be in your DNA. A gene variant that increases a personโ€™s obesity risk by 30 to 40 per ...
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Transgender identity not mental health disorder study says, despite WHO designation

Sara Miller |
People who identify as transgender should not be considered to have a mental health disorder, according to a new study ...